[Freezair]

"Sounds good. From my experiences with a couple newbies we sometimes get in the shop, they just like someone to tell 'em that they've done a good job. Even if their papers are totally flawless; better than what some established adventurers have, even--they want confirmation that they've got it right. Sometimes a friendly 'yes' to boost your confidence is all people really need!" Ercole looked pleased as he said it. "Maybe one of the things we have in our center could be, like... an unofficial guide to setting up a zoo pen! Tips and tricks! Not necessarily guidelines, but things one might like to include. Just to give ideas."

"I know the Preservation Zoo keeps some charter-making templates and record papers around," Desmond said. "I don't think I see too many people using them. With the exception of the business card signature ones--I've seen a couple printed in those--but they seem to fall by the wayside. It's a nice idea, though," Desmond said.

"Makes me think, maybe one of the things our guides could do is 'shadow' the newbs for a while. See what they get up to, you know? And offer hints on things they could improve on, and they could freely ask... or is that too stalkerish?"

[Moofius]

Well Kinomi could relate to that. He'd started this meeting off shy and already he felt at home and confident enough to speak his mind, just because these guys thought his ideas were good.
"I think you're right, Ercole. So experienced adventurers who are accepted into this should be prepared to put a bit of time into looking at what new users have already done and tell them if they're doing a good job, or help them if they have signed the right form or something. So the new adventurer can at least know he or she is not on their own. At least not until their comfortable to be on their own."

The berry kuhna laughed, "I'd almost forgotten those dusty old Zoo schematics. When Moofius first arrived she looked over them but didn't like them much and used the pens of others."
All the mention of it being too stalkerish Spark laughed, "Maybe a little. We could assure them that they can phone or e-mail us, or even stop by if they have any questions or problems? I think that'd be better. Some people need room to spread their wings, but know that if they fall out of the nest there's somebody to help them."
"You would use an example that involves flying."

[Freezair]

"Exactly!" Ercole laughed. "That's precisely what we need to be. And there's another tip to put into our basket of friendly advice to give. 'Look at what people who came before you did; that can give you ideas." He looked thoughtful. "...Boy, how old DO you think some of those schematics are? Ancient. Completely. They've gotta be. Some of 'em are probably written in hieroglyphics..."

"I have a question," Desmond said. "Well. It's phrased like a question, but it's more of an item to put on the table for discussion. How long should someone's official 'mentoring' period last? If they form a friendship with their mentor and maintain contact, well, we can't limit that, but the 'official' I-help-you-and-all-that period? Should we have one? Should it be set or more flexible? I think it needs a modicum of flexibility, but what would be a ballpark sort of guess? Two weeks, I'd suggest..."

"Two weeks? That feels like barely anything," Ercole said. "Maybe a month."

"A month? But that's terribly long? Plenty of people can find their footing before then."

"Maybe as an upper limit, then," Ercole said. "Oh, hey! Is that waitress coming to us with drinks? Good; I'm parched! Do we want anything to eat, either? I could use a bite or a snack... Best get some brain food, eh?"

[9, 34]

[Moofius]

Almost as soon as the words passed Ercole's lips a woman who seemed to perfectly fit the cafe arrived with a tray balanced skillfully in one hand. She was short, almost the same height as Ercole, 5'1" (so about 5 inches in the difference), just bordering on being midget short. She had darker skin and darker brown hair that was done in long corn rolls that ended some place near her hips.
She may have been short but she was far from petite. Unlike most "larger" women she seemed totally comfortable and happy with herself, her free hand placed comfortably on her hip and a large smile of white teeth lightning up her face.
"Sorry about the wait, Dearies," she said in a very clear Jamaican accent; it wasn't like it could be mistaken for anything else. Actually, she was a little difficult to understand if you weren't paying attention because she spoke quickly.

She set each order down in front of the appropriate customer. Fizzing brown cola for Ercole, a small dish of ice placed on the table near him should he want to add any ice to his drink, Kinomi's hot chocolate.
"With mint, Hun." The lady said, still smiling. Kinomi nodded his thanks. Spark smiled too, taking what appeared to be just coffee... Or well, coffee heavily milked with cream.
"Mint green for you too, hun. And I do believe that hippies were a few years back? Decades even?"
The woman laughed, some how she'd caught that hippy comment over the music. Well, this was her establishment and so she seemed to know what was going on.

"Thank you very much." Spark smiled, drinking at her weirdly creamy coffee. She seemed happy with the strange mix.
"Er... Well I like the sound of two weeks, personally..." Kinomi said, carefully lapping at the hot chocolate. He'd burnt his tongue enough to know to test it first. It seemed just right, but he'd give it a bit of time to cool down.
"If they're really into learning stuff the basics can be usually, figured out in two weeks."
"Some adventurers don't have lots of free time though." Spark pointed out, frowning.
"Should there even be a limit? Would you honestly be okay to say, 'Well our time is up so I can't help you?' "
The voice didn't belong to any of the usual patrons, but the woman who had just served them.
"If you don't mind me saying."

(( Bleh, I'm not at home, I can't use my list of Jamaican slang. XDX! ))

[Freezair]

Ercole and Desmond both thanked the sweet-faced, chubby waitress happily. "Thank you very much," Desmond said earnestly, in his best Gentlemany Man voice. "I am quite pleased!"

"That's a good point," Ercole said. He sipped from his glass of cola from a straw. "Well, I think one of the things about our center should be, we'll accept questions and stuff from anyone. I think you're right and there probably shouldn't be like, a LIMIT limit. Though we also don't want someone stuck with an adventurer who comes once or twice and then vanishes."

"Hopefully, though," Desmond said, lapping at his tea, "someone who took the time to sign up would be intent on hanging around. And yes! Two weeks sounds perfect."

Ercole looked a little put off, but didn't say anything. He just sipped at his drink, and tried to push down a belch.

[10, 35]

[Moofius]

"Enjoy bredda," she smiled as she walked off calling over her shoulder once to add, "Should you need anyting juss call mee."
Kinomi was rather taken with her accent. It was so different!
"Er well... Actually I'm kind of curious about something now..." He fidgetted nervously, "I mean... if we're open to questions at any time to whoever... I mean... What would the two weeks outline?"

Spark frowned, "Erm... For help with zoo pens and stuff...?"
"But those could be questions like, 'Do you think my zoo pen looks nice? Am I missing anything?' Anybody could ask that of us at any time..."
So what exactly were they doing.

(( Real question. And sorry for the late reply and the shortness. x____x;;; Sorry. x___x;;; ))

[Freezair]

"OK," said Ercole. He sipped from his drink. "Anybody got a pen I can borrow?"

"There's one there," Desmond said, pointing at the table.

"Thanks," Ercole said. He swiped a napkin from the napkin holder and laid it out flat on the table in front of him, and clicked the pen open. He began to scribble frantically as he typed.

"Here's what I propose. As mentors, here is what we offer. A mentor will a person whom a newbie is ideally supposed to come to with any of their questions, at any time, for the two week period. A lot of newbies tend to ask similar questions, so by having a dedicated, personal answerman or woman, that helps prevent some Help Section clutter. Plus, if they form bonds with their mentors as they ideally would, then hopefully they'll be less afraid to ask questions they think are 'stupid' in public." He'd scratched some frantic notes into the napkin. "In addition! We provide, as part of our package..."

He drew tick marks and listed them off as he spoke.

"Zoo Pen form critiques! Adventuring style critiques, and Breeder's Listing form critiques! Now, I know how some people are. So the critiques should probably be optional. But ideally, people who are serious about improving will be welcoming."

Desmond peered over at the napkin. "I am nominally an idealist, but I am worried somewhat that your plan relies on a number of 'perfect-world-isms.'"

"Well, we've gotta try SOMETHING. It's a bit hard to write things out when we don't have any newbies to experiment on. Right now this is all speculation. We don't yet have any real practical experience."

[11, 36]

[Moofius]

Spark nodded at this (also she was impressed that Ercole could scribble and type at the same time. What a nut!) seeing what he meant.
"Alright... How will we actually... You know... give out experienced adventurers? I mean will we just... ask?" Spark shifted in her chair towards Kinomi who was currently lapping at his hot-chocolate happily.
"Kinomi. Be a new adventurer." Kinomi looked up at her, confused, "Perfect." Both chuckled and Spark continued.
"Hello there new adventurer, you seem lost, need any assitance?"
"Erm well maybe er... Who are..?"
"I'm a..." she looked to Ercole oh man, we need a cool name! Something catchy!"
"And welcoming." Kinomi added pointedly. He even pointed up at the cieling, as if to emphasize.
"Evelonian Welcoming Committee?"
"That's pretty dry, don't you think?"
"Well it works and it's pretty easy to understand." Spark said with a shrug, frowning before continuing.
"I'm here to make your start as a proper adventurer really easy."
"Well that sure would be swell!" Kinomi wasn't the best actor, or he was a really good over actor.
"Swell? Really? Nobody says swell anymore." Spark laughed and Kinomi shrugged, "I like that word."
Off topic much? Very very off topic, there was no doubt.

[Freezair]

"I have an idea," Desmond said. "May I borrow that napkin?"

Ercole passed it over. Without transforming into a human, he somehow managed to take the pen in his paws (without thumbs! Remarkable, really) and write something down on the paper.

Ercole grinned as he saw what Desmond had written. He held up the napkin.

H.E.L.P.

Honorary
Evelon
League of
Protectors

"I like it," Ercole said. "'Evelon Welcoming Committee' could probably be the subheader... subtitle... the sub-something."

"As for assignments," Desmond said. "I think we should assign them... well, who will be available? Depending on the number of newbies, one to a seasoned adventurer... Two if times are tough, but let's hope we don't get that much of a flood. Members who are H.E.L.P.ers who are not mentoring may be asked to mentor. If they are busy, they may refuse, but let's hope there will be others around to pick up the slack. If they're on a noted leave, then we wouldn't go to them right off.

[12, 37]

[Moofius]

There was silence from the other two until.
"You're a friggin genius!"
"That's perfect!" Kinomi practically gushed, which wasn't something he did often.
"Alright well that gets that out of the way." Spark laughed, shaking her head, amused. That was clever and very perfect.
"Yah. Sub-thinger. Just so it's really super clear, we don't want anybody confused. So we're assigned a new adventurer... I guess we'll take care of assigning the experienced adventurers who have signed up for this and who passed out test. How many questions per test do you thing?"
Kinomi shifted, "Should we leave room for mistakes? Say if there were... 15 questions and you get three wrong you're alright but four and you don't pass?"

More into the technical aspect of this. They kinda' flip-flopped a lot, these two. At least most everything had been addressed to some degree.
"We need more questions as well." Spark said, chewing on her right hands pointer finger, the middle knuckle to be precise.

(( Fail posts are fail. x___x;; Sorry. ))

[Freezair]

"Fifteen sounds perfect, actually," Desmond said. "Picked from a pool of however many we have, ranging from easy to difficult." He sipped his tea. "I don't think they should be simple yes or no questions, but there should be some leeway on questions. Say that each question is worth two points. Thirty points total. You can gain a single point if you're half-correct. Instead of a number of questions, say that you have to at least get a 25 out of 30."

"Lemmie crunch that number," Ercole said. "That'd be..." He fiddled with the calculator. "Five-sixths, which is... 83%. Well, that's kind of a funky number, but it's a 'B' on a test. Whatcha think of that one?"

"Pass me another napkin," Desmond said. "Let's start passing some more questions back and forth."

[13, 38]

[Moofius]

"83 IS a weird number." Kinomi said...
"But 25 out of thirty isn't. I like it, sounds good to me. A bit of room for mistakes but you still have to know what you're talking about. I guess we'll toss around more questions and later go through them and decide what is easy and what is hard? Divide the list and pick random questions with the same consistency of easy and hard from both sides?"
"And we could have a few yes no or true or false, but not man." Kinomi said, "Like... easy points. Maybe like 2 or 3 on a test? Or should we keep to being strict? We'll have less applicants getting in maybe..."

"I have a good question. I mean, about like... conditional questions I guess."
"What?" The berry kuhna looked to his partner, confused.
"Well I mean maybe the adventurer is older but only just came back. They know all the rules but maybe they don't keep up to date on this like... Well the local  news channel. So maybe if we had questions like, 'what just recently happened in the news?' it would depend on... what just recently happened, right? For instance the genetic labs for other creatures, like hollowhearts just opened up recently. If people don't stay up to date on that stuff then they won't be really helpful, right?"
"Oh... I think I get what your saying." Kinomi said speaking carefully as he thought it out loud to himself and the group, "It's more expensive to do that then before, right? And somebody else is in charge. So even if you know a lot, if you don't watch the news then you wouldn't beable to answer important questions about changes?"
"Yah, exactly." Spark said, pleased.

(( The News = Updates ))

[Freezair]

"I think asking our guides to be up-to-date would be good," Ercole nodded. "Good point about the returning adventurers, though... Hmm. Well, should we ask them to get themselves up-to-date on the news first? Legitimate question, here. On one hand, we need newbies to be prepared for the current state of Evelon. On the other hand, old adventurers have plenty to offer. They may not be up-to-date, but they still have good advice.--Ah, but does their knowledge accurately reflect the current Evelon?"

"I think they should still be allowed to participate," Desmond said. "I assume good faith in them, and they still have social wisdom. However, I don't feel that asking them if they're willing to catch themselves up on new things is good. Perhaps we should give them a warning--they may be asked about new things. We'll allow them to prepare themselves. Obviously, trivial things shouldn't be too hardly pressed. They don't need to know what all species have gone off the public market ((AKA retired)) if they can find or direct newbies to the website that gives the list of all the off-market species one needs a special liscence for."

Ercole pushed back the last of his drink. "OK, HERE'S a big question. What if someone fails the test, or doesn't pass some other criteria. Other than the polite letter of rejection, should they be allowed to reapply at some future date?"

[14, 39]

[Moofius]

Kinomi looked to Spark and the two nodded. Seemed solid, I mean more experienced adventurers did have... more experience. A warning would suffice and then taking the test, they'd risk not qualifying later on.
"Sounds fair enough to me." Spark said with the berry kuhna nodding.

"They should be able to retake the test, I think that's a given." Kinomi said, "People change. Like new adventurers to old adventurers; if you didn't have the experience before you could easily gain the experience later."
"I agree with Kinomi. As for a time period... Well if they fail maybe... A month? Gives them time to just... learn their stuff I guess."

(( Sorry this took so long and sorry it sucks so much. x3x;;; ))

[Freezair]

((EEEEK! I didn't even know this un-died! D: I'm soooo sorry! X.x I've been busy and weird... I'll try and respond, if suckily.))

"A month sounds good," Ercole nodded. "Mmm. Question though! Should there be retaking... 'penalties?' Like a harder question or so? Or is that too much?"

"Oh, no need to go overboard," Desmond said. "But maybe we should test our guides themselves, maybe... once every six months? Just a little retest, you know, to make sure they're up with the times! How does that sound?"

"Sounds like a lot of work," Ercole sighed. "C'mon, we're not THAT formal an organization. SHOULD we go overboard like that?"

[15, 40]