Tsuiraku-town, part 2

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade watched the trio exit through the front door and walk past her to the transportation they'd arrived on (horses? a cart? help please?), the leader casting a brief look back at the merc and shooting her one of those oh-so-charming fake smiles. Jade hissed a jet of smoke out the corner of her mouth.

'Trouble... and in our road' By her reckoning the building was pretty empty by now. She thanked the old man (who'd introduced himself as Morris) for the smoke and made her way back into the safehouse. She saw Ace talking with the teenage girl who'd shown up earlier; some kind of discussion about guns. Although by the way the girl was looking at the man Jade got the impression she'd like to shift the topic onto something more intimate.

'Well, good luck with that mischief' she thought. Her half-empty glass was still on the table where she'd left it. She collapsed into a chair and snatched it back up.

[Sareth]

Any chance I could borrow one of your pistols?"

"What?" Jamie looked taken aback. "You want to touch my pistols? You're kidding, right? Before I let that happen I'd let you touch my"

"JAMIE!"

Jamie sighed and pulled one of her Gewehr pistols out. It was older, as she'd had the pair for almost ten years and improvements had come about since, but it was serviceable enough. "Try this on for size."

[Graybeard]

"If they didn't take kindly, clearly you weren't packing enough heat."

Ace cast a blank look on the Ghob, whatever that was, as the two groups went on their separate ways. That was a very Gewehr thing to say, actually. On the other hand, the Gewehr low-lives who looked at the world that way had a tendency to get dead. Oh, well, not his problem. He hefted the old pistol Jamie gave him. It would do; it even felt like a piece he'd borrowed from someone in the Gewehr a few years back. "Thanks. Let's go," he said, leaving Jasmine (and Nera), Maya, Jade and the old hired hand at the farmhouse.

With darkness falling, he could see a very faint shimmer of light around the shack; the magical barrier he'd run into earlier, presumably, visible now when it hadn't been earlier. Might it have been stepped up in intensity? Maybe. In any event, he wasn't going to test it.

"So now, we wait," he said to Jamie. "If you don't mind my asking, just what brings you here?"

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade tipped a hand from her brow to Ace and Jamie (thanks to the girl's mother continually yelling at her she now knew her name) as they left for the second watch. She swirled the remaining wine in her glass and sighed, beginning to feel at a loose end. The only courses of action that made sense for the immediate future where to either get some rest or dig for information. She glanced over to Jaime's mother, also taking in the young child who had the pretty woman's attention. The only other occupant of the room was Maya; sitting on the couch with an unreadable expression on her face. Jade waited until the mother glanced over in her direction before making a remark.

"Cute kid. How old is she?" She said, smiling warmly.

[Sareth]

"So now, we wait," Ace said to Jamie. "If you don't mind my asking, just what brings you here?"

"Oh, I just have a wandering soul," Jamie replied. "I don't like being tied down any place. Moving around is more fun, really." She smiled. "That, and I keep getting chased out of places for some funny reason." She idly played with the action on one of her pistols.

****

"Cute kid. How old is she?" Jade said, smiling warmly.

"This little booger?" Jasmine smiled as she played with Nera, eliciting giggles. "She's about six months old. Isn't she just the cutest thing on the planet? Aren't you? Aren't you?" The woman descended into babbling baby talk as she rubbed noses with the extremely easy child.

[kagome_kino]

Maya watched everyone leave, well as watchful a blind girls get, "and they say I'm the crazy one." Shurgging her shoulders "i would fix everyone a snack but...... well last time I cooked." Maya remebered it well it was alot of fun cooking with her sister back in the kitchen, the fond smells and everything. "hmmm well I didn't exactly get food more like a blob..... that was alive, and was toxic..... and acidc. It only took the military a two week to catch it I hear there still trying to figure out what it is." Sine then Maya wasn't allowed near a kitchen and since being on her journey hadn't had the chance.

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade listened, unblinking, as one woman descended into the madness of nonsensical baby talk typically reserved for new parents while the other started talking about her culinary projects being run down by armed soldiers. Her eye twitched.

'... I'm surrounded by crazy people.'

It was probably time for another glass of wine. She drew herself up and tried to break the ice a little.

"Well I'm just glad your skills as a medic are better than that." she nodded at Maya "And yes.. erm... lady. The kid's adorable." A thought occured to her, a shadow crossed her face. She tried her best to phrase the next question gently "You think the little tyke'll be safe in the vineyard? Those people we saw sounded pretty serious about 'dealing with the situation' over here."

[Sareth]

Jasmine smiled. "They haven't met my daughter yet. I may not like it, but I have to admit, she's good at mayhem."

[Hours]

Gault never did like the docks of Rinkaiel, there was always too much competition going on around here, however at least for now there was no reason for anyone to combat him. His ship had paid its protection money and all other fees to get past and slipped Gault in by travelling in by air, there was nothing the Seeadler could argue with on board and no one they were after since for the trip into this place the captain position was officially held by his first mate.

Night had fallen so the ship was a bit busier, most of his crew had come back at this point since they were too cheap to spring for a room in town and a lot of them too smart to even want to since frankly Rinkaiel was a hole. This brought them here for now to Gault's black freighter, smelling strongly of oil, smoke and salt and gently shifting with the tides, top deck stacked with a few idle crates and cargo items chained down and covered with tarpaulins. Around a dozen of Gault's crew sat around on deck around a flaming drum and laughing as they drunk down the spoils of that last headhunt, a few shouting out their greetings to Ghaz who they hadn't seen in a while.

Gault himself headed up to his cabin, a small packed in office space with a bedroll behind its desk. Stowing away the groceries into a small locker by his bed and taking out a wad of papers he stopped and took down the information of the evening as was relevant before folding them, sealing them with wax, locking the door, shutting the blinds, sweeping the place for scrying and spies magical and mundane, and turning to his safehold, a little smuggling compartment concealed in his floor beneath some false removable rivets that pivoted around a few real ones. The notes were added to the stack of paper while Gault pulled out a small footlocker containing some black clothes and a smaller weapon case about the size of his forearm.

Freshly armed, Gault stepped out on deck shortly after, waiting for Mouse and Ghaz to be done with their stuff.

[kagome_kino]

Maya nodded "yeah even though it's a vineyard it seems most people's skill sets seem to inculde murder pretty odd really." Maya shrugged it off not really caring after being kidnapped so many times. "well I really wanted to learn magic but... it's kind of hard, can't read book or look at pictures. But it was still alot of fun my sisters helped me out alot, though they kept getting in trouble for trying to teach me fireball."