[He's put the pictures aside by this point. It's time to get to more serious matters after all. He'd just told Ruby they were sharing information. He tries to stay matter of fact, but the Horologium is still a pretty fresh loss, even if they technically succeeded in their objective.]

Horologium was the place we just returned from, shortly before you all arrived in fact. The Horologium was a ship that sent out an emergency distress call and Astoria sent us to check it out. The investigation turned sour pretty quickly and

[it's here that he hesitates. Still, if she's Yang's sister and hanging around this post she's bound to hear it elsewhere.]

there was a monster on board, a creature. It confronted those of us who went deeper into the ship and it hurt a lot of people. Some...well until a few days ago we were counting our dead. Astoria

[He stops, shaking his head]...or someone else was able to restore them to life. It's why the mood around here has been a little darker than the festival would have you think.

[Maes sighs, suddenly tired. He hadn't even gotten into Akvos yet, but this conversation was already pretty heavy.]

Akvos was the mission prior to that. We didn't lose any Circle members on that one, but it was still a pretty bad mission given we lost the people of Akvos' home. Maybe that wasn't our fault entirely, but it certainly feels that way looking back on it.