Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

For in-universe game play. Journey through both familiar and foreign settings, explore lost ruins and forgotten cities, and try to bring light to the darkness of the world... or, you know, blow stuff up. Either way.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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A flat smile crossed Seishi Torou's face. "Don't worry, gaijin," he said. "We will not."

Then he looked upward, toward where Layla was watching, and shouted a magical command. "ADAM! NOW!"

Layla threw herself out of the way as the golem surged against the rope.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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Leo heard the creaking noise of something big moving above him and his reflexes worked on automatic. The pistol in his hand came up... and aimed at Torou. He squeezed the trigger twice before his brain caught up with him and announced that in all probability Torou would have a barrier up. At the same time a bloody explosion from the chest of one of the double-crossers underlings announced that Eve had decided to add her own contribution to the fray.

With adrenalin soaked senses Leo heard the sound above him of energy gathering. Jade's 'baby' was also preparing to fire.

OOC Whoops, retconned/OOC
Last edited by Jack Rothwell on February 11th, 2012, 2:00 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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[OOC: Neat trick that Leo pulled there, seeing that the golem was invisible ... but maybe it became visible again on leaving its perch. Anyway:]

Layla cringed as the gunplay erupted, and she went for her own pistol, knowing it would be too little, too late. Torou had a shield up, was already starting to gather magic to throw at Faye, Leo and Oskar, and the golem would take care of the rest.

But then the thing she had been hoping for, happened.

There was a sharp ting as the rope broke, but it had done its job. The golem wasn't dropping toward the floor in a controlled fall, but rather flailing out of control, unable to regain its balance after tripping over the rope. Torou glanced up at the massive form falling toward him ... but it was too late.

There was a sickening, squishing sound as the magical construct landed full force atop the Torou family. The whole family. Including the baby.
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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"Oh... fucking... hell." Leo murmured as the gory display which had replaced their former foes. The merc just had time to finish his trip back to the wall when the shot from his girlfriend's mana rifle struck the flat of the crumpled golem's back, and finished the job of dismembering the magical construct in a shower of stone shards. One of them cut a neat part sideways through his fake beard; ruining a ten minute glue job and wasting the three bits he'd paid for the damn thing.

Leo put a hand to the wall to steady himself. After a moment he rallied and called up to the rafters.

"Sweetheaaaaart! Why did you fire after that thing fell?"

"Sorry love." Came the reply, which sounded as shell-shocked as Leo felt. "Can't shut it down mid-charge, it would've blown my head off."

"Right, right." The Silver Hand turned to Faye and gave her a smile which might have been charming if it hadn't been covered in lightly smoking bristles. "You okay?"
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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"You okay?"

"I think so," a very pale Faye replied, and then she proceeded to show that she was lying; three long steps took her outside the dome, where retching sounds could be heard momentarily.

Up on the dome, Layla was trying hard to avoid doing the same. Deep breaths, girl, just like when you gave birth, she commanded herself. It worked; she was succeeding in fighting down the nausea ... although what was inside her head was still its mental equivalent. I'll shed no tears for Torou or his wife. He had it coming, and she knew what she was getting into when she married him. But that baby ... Luminosita forgive me, I did not want that to happen. I'm sorry. If she was aware of the incongruity of asking forgiveness from a god she claimed not to believe in, she chose to ignore it.

She gathered up her belongings and climbed down to where Rufus was waiting. "Let's get the hell out of here."
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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Rufus nodded and led the way towards the waiting vehicle, passing no comment on the ashen quality of Layla's face. It was an expression the old man had seen before, usually on young soldiers who'd had their first taste of a real battle. Rufus had enough of a measure of the young woman to know she was no stranger to violence. It was clear something had gone really wrong inside the temple but the appearance of Faye and the rest of the mercenaries discounted the chance that what had gone wrong had happened to them.

There was an uneasy silence as the wagon began it's journey back to the vineyard.

OOC Back to the vineyard?/OOC
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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Layla stopped the wagon. "One thing first." As grisly as this one last chore was, it had to be done.

She walked back into the scene of the massacre, trying to remember where Eve had been when she fired, and where the henchman she'd killed had been standing. Somewhere, on a line connecting and extending beyond those two points, would be a bit of evidence that she didn't want to leave here. Yes, there it was, a pock mark in the wall where the slug had embedded itself after destroying the thug. She quickly dug the slug out, pocketed it for disposal elsewhere, and using that first bit of magic she'd learned what seemed like half a lifetime ago (even if it was only a month or two), smoothed the divot out of the wall.

"There," she said with relief as she walked back to the wagon, carefully avoiding the main carnage. (She thought she remembered Leo firing at Torou, but if she understood magical barriers correctly, his bullets would simply have been absorbed by the spell, and would leave nothing for a snooping police officer, or more likely, Seeadler operative, to find. Absorbed or not, there was no way in all the Blue Hells that she was digging into that mess.) "The -- way that worked out may actually be a lucky stroke for us. There's no physical evidence of gunplay here, and lots of evidence of magical violence that neither your group nor ours are thought to be capable of. All there is is smoke from the guns, and that'll dissipate by morning. Since we know the Seeadler uses this place too, I want to cover our tracks, make it look like it was some Tsuirakuan gang war or something."

The effort of the spellcasting and the concentration on what she'd been doing had returned some color to her cheeks, but it was fading again. That poor child... "As I said," she repeated, "let's get the hell out of here."

[OOC: OK, now back to the vineyard, with a stop somewhere in town to stash the slug that we don't need to play out "on stage."]
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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Eve clambered off the wagon with the used bullet in her hand. They were still a good half mile from the Gewehr's hideout, and the area they had stopped at was fairly nondescript. It was a cornfield for a small farm owned by no-one of importance.

"Eve?"

"What, Bert?"

The pair shuffled along between a pair of central rows. The rustle of the leaves was the only other sound to hear.

"I was wondering..."

"WHAT, Bert?"

"Err...nothing."

A moment later the bullet was buried and the silver hands were strolling back. Eve led, unable to see the hang-dog expression on the young man's face. Bert unable to see the faint smile on hers.

......

The group arrived at Layla's hideout fifteen minutes later. One by one they dismounted and headed for the, now thankfully clear of traps, entrance to the main house of the vineyard.

The old man dismounted a little awkwardly, favoring his hip. Even so, he turned and extended a hand for Faye, who still seemed shaken by her recent experiences.

"Careful madam." He said. "A spill from the wagon could ruin your day."

OOC Just thought I'd use that little side stop as an excuse for a bit of character development. Besides, a valentines day post deserves a little romantic subtext, I reckon./OOC
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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"Thanks," Faye said simply, dismounting from the cab and giving Rufus' hand a little extra squeeze in the process.

Layla, for her part, didn't wait for help; she vaulted out of the carriage and sprinted into the house, there to envelop her son in tearful mommy love. Ace had been waiting patiently, holding Zachary and expecting at least a hug and a kiss, but when Layla roared by and scooped up the baby, he stood open-mouthed for a moment before turning to Joe.

"Bad one, huh?" he asked.

Joe looked at Layla's boyfriend, puzzled at first, but then he remembered: Ace wasn't a Wraith, he was an airship pilot. That meant his perspective on what a "bad one" entailed would be a little different from everyone else's here. "Not as bad as it could be," he said. "All the bad guys died. None of us did. So it wasn't really 'bad.' There was something that shook her up pretty bad, though. Help me put the horses away, and I'll fill you in ... and then we need to look into chartering a small airship."
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Re: Rinkaiel: Kidnappers

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Jade entered the vineyard house rolling a cigarette and glancing around with wine-seeking eyesight. Despite her elation that her group had made it through a potential slaughterhouse without causalities she was concerned for Layla. She tried to edge into the conversation to get a better read on her friend.

"Do you not want to rest a while and take stock?" She asked gently.
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