Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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[OOC: Not quite ready for sunset yet, but soon. Anna-Lisa, remember, wandered off to get her backpack ... and will now reappear with a flourish. I do need to put a few words in Crosby's mouth, however, so:]

"Romantic." Khoo cringed at the word, but at least the good news was that Anna-Lisa wasn't here to hear it.

Yet.

She remedied that failing by opening the door triumphantly and sweeping into the smithy -- "sweeping" by about six inches, anyway, before the backpack she was wearing, which was several inches wider than she was, got wedged in the doorway. "Oops," she said, turned sidewise to clear the door, and continued her triumphant entrance, showing not the slightest discomfiture from this little faux pas.

Crosby was amused, not noticing the expression on Khoo's face. "I thought you Tsuirakuans didn't need to carry things like that. Don't you have those 'Pocket Dimension' gadgets for carrying half your worldly belongings in?"

If Khoo's face had registered alarm moments earlier, it was showing near panic now. "Well, actually, um --"

Anna-Lisa's face, by contrast, lit up with pleasure, the pleasure of her usual excited state. "Oooh, but this is special! See, it's got OOMPH![smack]"

Khoo had silenced her the only way short of violence that he knew would work: with a kiss. She'd been about to say that this "special" backpack did contain a Pocket Dimension; an ultra-large and curiously -- secure one, in fact, given to them by Masaki, who'd said it had the carrying capacity of a small submarine. It was unclear whether this was one of his few attempts at humor, or a less-than-subtle hint as to how to pack the thing; he almost certainly knew that indeed, Anna-Lisa did own her own, small, personal submarine. Khoo had wondered whether she'd actually managed to fit the thing into the Pocket Dimension, and decided he didn't want to know. That this contraption had been designed by Mesuinu Enterprises couldn't surprise anyone. Could it?

The key point, however, was that Masaki had also said that this gadget's secure capabilities (not to mention a carrying capacity definitely way beyond a garden-variety Pocket Dimension's) were not supposed to be revealed to gaijin without a need, and whatever she was planning clearly wasn't such a need. By the time the kiss was released, only a second or two later (although to Khoo and Anna-Lisa, it seemed an eternity ... but not for the same reasons), she'd remembered that too. "It's specially ruggedized for travel," she recovered with a smile; surprisingly gracefully, Khoo had to admit. It was even true, sort of.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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OOC Hey, ill try and get something in here tomorrow. Again, apologies for the sporadic posting./OOC
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Jade stifled another chuckle at the romantic display between the two and turned back to her work.

"I'll meet you lovebirds later. Hopefully it'll be smooth sailing on our vegetable quest."


OOC really have anything else to add atm. I'm good to fast forward whenever you guys are./OOC
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Udo would be more than an hour early to the rendezvous, and hide himself in the edge of the woods until his new paymistress arrived, daydreaming of adventures past and future. And kobolds. And kobold kisses. Once she arrived it would be simple: go where she said, do what she said, earn some clinky money.
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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OOC: I'm good to go forward to sunset, but both Elke and Fumiko Otani (who, again, will be an NPC) will be heard from before things get too far past twilight. I'll try to get something written for them tonight. Incidentally, I'll be out of touch for several days starting Tuesday due to surgery. Back in it around Saturday if all goes well.
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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[OOC: OK. Since Jade's employing Udo it should be for Jack to take us there--and I hope tell us what equipment she is bringing along. Best of luck to you!]
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Meanwhile:

The Eisenfaust didn't have any problems with the much smaller Falkenrohr, as long as they minded their manners and took care of business in Ester without straying into Eisenfaust space (which was to say, mainly Lorrel, but also anywhere they needed to go in order to restrict/harass the Gewehr). Reports reaching Mr. Jones had not particularly noted any deviations from this generally cordial relationship. (Elke's mildly amused exasperation at the overkill with her "papers" didn't count as a deviation in context.)

They did, however, suggest the possibility that some other outfit was gathering strength to muscle in on Falkenrohr activities and territory. That was something the Eisenfaust would notice; not all the outfits in southwestern Farrel were as, she would say, comfortable to deal with as this one. The contact with Tom Odd having been made and the Flatiron entered, she ordered dinner, paying for it with the same kind of large-denomination coin as had been used to eliminate a low-level operative who'd been caught with his hand in the Eisenfaust till. This one, however, was legitimate currency, or close enough; at least it contained no explosives or sharp objects.

When the Falkenrohr capo was seated opposite her, with his own order placed, she started the engagement process, with a line of questions she'd discussed with Annabelle before setting out for Ester. (There would be another line that she very definitely had not discussed with anyone, and never would, but that could come at the end of the interview.) "We've been hearing strange things about operations in a place in or near your people's turf called the Mushroom Woods," she said. "Know anything about it?"

[OOC: In case it isn't obvious, the "commanding female voice" in that earlier entry was Elke's.]
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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Tom Odd well understood the sufferance the Patrols lived under--neither the Gewehr nor the Eisenfaust wanted the other to control Ester, so both were content for his independent force to guard the roads and collect the tolls. As long as he didn't either (1) cozy up to one or the other, or (2) try encroaching on their territory. So he had to strike the right balance between tough independence and respectfulness.

"The woods are off limits," he said. "Our only 'operation' near those woods is keeping people out of them. But anyone who does sneak in there never comes out, so people mainly know better anyway. They don't bother us; we don't bother them." Kind of like us with you, you know? "If there is someone trying to start an operation in there, that's something we'd be interesting in knowing about."

He knew more than he was going to tell, though that wasn't clear from his face. Whoever controlled this town had to learn about the woods and a small part of their secret. But sharing too much with either one of his more powerful neighbors would be an extremely bad idea. A mischievous spirit--known in other times and places as the "Good Idea Fairy"--would invariably convince some functionary to start exploring what didn't need exploring, stirring up what didn't need stirring up, messin' where they shouldn't be a-messin', and losing when they oughta not bet.

"If you're here about the recent weapons sales," he added, "we already communicated with your organization, and none of the items were taken from you. Or anyone else who's cared to contact us. Wouldn't be surprised if some came from the Black Guards before their organization collapsed." He wasn't going to speak ill of the Black Guards per se--some of their refugees had been recruited by Tom Odd himself. Some of their leaders--such as the late Captain Gabriel Averis--had been training them to a high standard, and they were grateful for a more sane and less ambitious employment than the one they'd just known. "They've already been sold off, though."

[OOC: btw, is it correct to assume that Khoo shared the results of his Tsuipedia research with Jade? That would seem in character.]
Last edited by Alberich on November 12th, 2017, 10:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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[OOC: Yes, Khoo would share. More Fumiko, with both a tie to my fanfic and a callback to some stuff from the very early days of Errant Road:]

Also meanwhile:

"So that's all there is to it," the portalmage summed up to Fumiko and the eleven other "volunteers" ("short-term employees" would be more descriptive, apart from the social stigma to the portalmages of "employing" magically inept Tsuirakuans). "Be here at the warp gate at seven this evening, and we will do the first trial gate ever into the gaijin city of Rinkaiel. We will remain there for precisely one hour, then gate back here. You will be five hundred tsuis richer upon your return. Any questions?"

Several of the volunteers looked nervous; five hundred tsuis was a lot of money for a one-hour operation that the mages had just spent an hour assuring them was perfectly safe. However, Fumiko's hand was the only one raised, tentatively at that. "Will -- will we have time to do any shopping for souvenirs?" she asked. "I -- I never thought I'd be able to be a tourist in a barbarian city like that."

The portalmage assumed a posture that an upper-class Tsuirakuan would have recognized as indicating that the person he was addressing was little more than a barbarian herself. Not being upper class, Fumiko didn't notice. She did understand his response, however. "The group will stay together under my supervision at all times. We will not leave the gaijins' warp-gate building. If there is a gift shop there, you may pick something up, as long as it is non-magical and you can carry it on your person. I remind you that you are to leave your Pocket Dimensions at home. We want to make sure that there are no interactions between thaumatic fields that may interfere with the calibration of diagnostic instruments. Clear?" Abashed, Fumiko nodded and said nothing more. The group departed the briefing room.

Of course, things weren't really so "clear." The portalmage knew, as the volunteers did not, about the inexplicable misgate, the first in decades, that had happened only three weeks earlier. All indications were that that had been a true freak, something resulting from gate operations at exactly the same moment in time in several different locations, something that the investigators had calculated should happen less than once per thousand years. It had nothing to do with interactions between normal thaumatic fields; there'd been uncounted thousands of gates by people carrying Pocket Dimensions without incident, after all. But it never hurt to be on the safe side.

At least it would have been the safe side if Lucas Ravanel hadn't been escorting a tour group of his own in Rinkaiel at that exact same, appointed hour. In the event, however ...
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Re: Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

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After a few more hard hours work in the forge, and no small amount of sweat shed in the process, Jade was left feeling in dire need of a bath and holding her project in one tired, soot covered hand. She held it up for the older blacksmith for an appraisal.

"It's very nice." Flint commented. "... what is it?"

"If it works..." Jade replied. "it'll be a protective mask against dangerous flora. If it doesn't..." She shrugged. "It'll at least be a starting point. I won't know for sure until we get a sample and put it to the test."

She pocketed the mask, which vaguely resembled the head of a hound if the hound had been fashioned from steel, glass and leather.

"I've got no desire to try it out until we get back to town however. I'm not going to pay the help extra to drag me out of the woods. How's your commission going?"

Crosby held up Khoo's thoughtful gift to his girlfriend. Jade couldn't choke back a laugh.

"It's... definitely accurate I'll give you that."

Jade picked up her pack and stepped towards the doorway.

"I've still got a little time. I'm gonna grab something to eat and meet the stalwart heroes after. Thanks for your help Flint."

"Always a pleasure Ms Ermingard and... Jade?"

"Yes?"

"Be careful."

She smiled. "No promises."
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