Tsuiraku-town, part 2

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC K, k, new day. If Layla and the rest need Jade for some reason just assume she passed the info of where she's staying to Ace before she left. This pub, by an extrodinary cosmic coincidence, also happens to be the one where Ouro sang his ballad earlier in the thread and where Gaults crew made a brief stop/OOC


Jade was gone from the safehouse and headed into Tsuiraku town proper long before the couples reunion. She'd left Ace with a full report of the whole golem incident that bordered on an anal-retentive level of detail ('Sometimes the tiniest details can be the most revealing' her father used to say) and the promise that she'd return later in the day once she'd got her own affairs in order. The jingle of coins from a job well done accompanied the sound of her footsteps as she pushed open the doors to 'The Mead and Drum' ; one of the seedier taverns in the district.

Only a few of the more abusive drinkers were present at this time of day, most isolated in nooks and crannies or face down at the bar. Their somber mood seemed to match the decor; creaky floorboards, rickety chandeliers with meagre candles illuminating the darkened interior and piles of sawdust soaking up puddles of vomit. Jade tried to avoid staring too long as she strode across the room. The bartender looked up as she approached.

"Ahh, Miss Ermingard! We missed you last night. Rosh told us you'd be back for the evening."

"Then he was misguided." She didn't feel like elaborating on the rollercoaster series of events that had taken place over the last couple of days. Especially to Dandelo, the nosy barman was known for being loose-lipped with people's business. The man had his uses, however.

"Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"We had a bard in last night; some weird looking fellow with bandages over half his face. He played a mean fiddle though. Rosh says you owe him rent by the way."

"Yeah, yeah. Here." She clinked a couple of coins on a beer-sodden bar and started making her way to the stairs at the back of the room, calling back to the scrawny man.

"There's an extra day in there. And kindly get that serving girl to pour me a bath. I've got dirt and dust for days on me."

[Hours]

Gault awoke in time to be able to be dressed and personally able to ring out six bells for the crew, or at least what was left of it on the ship, only a bare few of the crew having bothered to stay on board the Queen Anne's Revenge overnight, others going out into the city for various ructions, destructions, diversions or devilment that caught their fancy.

He wound up bandaged wrist to shoulder, and all around his torso due to his wounds from last night. As soon as he'd gotten back to his quarters on the ship he patched himself up with magic easily enough, keeping the dressings just for the general effect of things. He dressed in his old oilskin coat that went down to his knees, and a new earthtone shirt, laced up his boots, grabbed his weapons old and new ensuring that they were concealed and went down to ring the bell before grabbing some bread for breakfast and heading out on one of the crew's few horses that were kept around as much for transport as they were for emergency food.

Time to check in at the vineyard.

---

Meanwhile out at the Mead and Drum three people who smelled of liquor, sea salt and long weeks without sufficient bathing water were still hanging around in the background, as if being used as a token extra in a narrative to add atmosphere and a sense of continuity while confirming that they were still alive.

[Jack Rothwell]

kOOC Are those 'three people who smelled of liquor' who are 'adding atmosphere and a sense of continuity' (I lol'd) just generic piratey types from Gault's crew? Would they be liable to be drunk and surly and start trouble with the tavern's security perhaps?/OOC


Jade made her way up to the cramped excuse that passed for a room at The Mead and Drum. She flung the door open into the threadbare chamber and immediately started unslinging the holsters, scabbards and belts that held the small arsenal she had in place. Those blades and bullets had been constant companions for the last 48 hours and had gotten really uncomfortable really fast.

A knock came at the door. Jade rolled her eyes and turned around to see Rosh standing in the doorway. The Mead and Drum's owner was a heavy set man, heading to middle age with a thick droopy moustache framed on a face only a mother could love. It was a face Jade had had to put with for the last three weeks she'd been staying in Tsuiraku town. The tavern had been the one place she'd been able to get work and board under the same roof.

"You would've been helpful here last night." he remarked.

Jade dumped her longsword on the cot and gave the man a stony look.

"I told you, Rosh. I was out of town for a few days."

"Well missy. I'm in need of some help this morning if you can pry yourself away from your hectic schedule."

She considered the offer, then shrugged. "Fine. I'll be down in an hour."

That seemed to satisfy, Rosh left the mercenary, blessedly, alone. She finished unlimbering herself, thinking warmer thoughts as the pouring noise of water going into a metal tub sounded from the room next door.

"Revitalise, recharge and greet the new crap with a shit-eating grin." she chuckled to herself.

[Graybeard]

"So that was the super-weapon?" Layla asked as she looked at the pieces of blue golem. She'd told Ace and the others about the menacing warning she and Faye had received from Kitaura, unaware that she was supposed to have forgotten most of the details.

"It would appear so," Ace nodded. He repeated what Jade had told him, then described the weird encounter at the shack.

Layla shook her head. "I don't know. The only one of these I've ever seen before wasn't much of a super-weapon. Handled herself quite civilly, in fact." At that point, something dawned on her.

"Wait a minute," she said to Jamie, frowning slightly. "Weren't you with that blue woman when I saw her on the beach in town? And before that, up at the pass near Volkanenborg? What do you know about these things?"

[OOC, an aside to Sareth/Jamie: If you want to fabricate a lame answer to this, go ahead; we're still untangling plot weirdness from the would-be blue-golem character that never materialized...]

[Hours]

Gault rode up to the vineyard soon after the arrival of the two generations of actual gewehr members that were staying there. He adjusted his 'bad' arm in its sling and slowly began to pick his way through the large field of traps and pitfalls that had surrounded the house. Admittedly he could have just skipped across it like a field of daisies or else just bounded over in a single magic fuelled leap but that would be a tad too difficult to justify, he was 'wounded' now and had had what he considered a minor victory under his belt for the day, not to mention a head full of ideas and things that needed doing.

He knocked on the door twice before stepping inside without much ado. There wasn't anyone around but there was some noise beneath the floorboards so he guessed they were in the basement for some reason or other. The place had stood a night and that was that. He took a seat on one of the couches and took a bite out of his meager breakfast. Not much to do but wait.

---

The three crewmen of the Queen Anne's Revenge sat around at their table. They'd been there most of the night so far and had come down from the one room they'd paid for and sprawled out on the floor for breakfast. So far they'd been rowdy, noisy, one of them handsy with the waitresses but otherwise not much out of the ordinary from an ordinary patron of one of the sleazier dives in town.

Only one of them was a fighting man, Gault's operation numbered just over two dozen men now that Ghaz was back, staffing only ten real fighters while the rest were engineering or maintenance. cabin staff, greasemonkies and coal shovellers for the boilers that kept the ship running. The one fighting man at this table from this set was oddly the smaller of the two men, dressed in faded grey with a sword and shooter sticking out of his belt, he leant back in his chair and picked his teeth with a chicken bone. The larger was a bestubbled mound of muscle and coal dust that worked in engineering and was clearly enduring the hangover from hell, while the third was a woman, a mechanic by the looks of her due to the oil on her face and hands, she gently prodded a plate of something or other that was probably breakfast but by the look on her face might as well have been something that had just come to life and called her 'mama'.

They'd been rowdy, they'd been loud, the shorter man had more than once picked a fight that wound up outside, but generally it was all good times. Still hadn't paid their bill though, but they'd been heard saying that they'd just got paid so they should have it on them.

[Sareth]

Jamie was still sulking, as she had been all night. She shrugged. "They seem to need sunlight. They can self repair if they have the right materials. They are surprisingly warm and soft to the touch in spite of what they look like. They also seem to be fairly intelligent, though I can't tell if they're really alive or not. And that last one was mine!" She slumped into an even deeper sulk.

Jasmine rolled her eyes. "We were traveling with one for a bit. I really can't add much to what my spoiled child had to say except that it seemed almost like the one we were with had some degree of independent thought and self will. That doesn't mesh with the stories I've heard, so I'd be careful about relying on what 'everybody' knows if you find yourself face to face with another."

"Mine," Jamie muttered.

"Oh, grow up and go change Nera's diaper. She stinks again."

"Moooooooooooom!"

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade was indeed refreshed and revitalised by the time she came back down to the main area of the bar in The Mead and Drum. She'd dumped her travel-worn clothes in favour of the fresher ones still mercifully untouched by the grime of the city, and rearmed herself with just her sword and revolver (the rest of her blades now securly locked in the chest in her room).

She made her way over to the bar, exchanging a nod with Dandelo as he poured another pint for one of the early morning alcoholics, and parked herself in a corner, unslinging her lengthy blade and leaning on the hilt in a calculated, unfriendly manner.

Being security sucked. It was a job that was deathly boring at the best of times or deathly dangerous at the worst. But Jade was a practically minded woman who saw the benefits of knowing where her next meal was coming from. She scanned the room, making a mental note of where the potential trouble was. It wasn't long before Rosh lumbered over to her.

'Here we go..' "Yes boss?"

Rosh didn't waste time on pleasantries. "There's a trio of wasters over there who've been here all night and still haven't paid their bill. Go deal with them."

Jade tipped a sarcastic salute to the cantankerous, aging fart and took a stroll over to the decidely disreputable looking threesome parked around a table that was half-buried under empty glasses.

"Good morning gentlemen, lady." she kept her tone light, as if discussing the weather. "My employer informs me that you've run up a respectable sum at our little establishment and would be greatly appreciative if you could settle the balance forthwith."



OOC Hours, do i have your permission to deliver a good old-fashioned ass-kicking to your npc or npc's if they refuse? I'll make out the fighter gives Jade a bit of trouble and send 'em home alive if that's cool./OOC

[Graybeard]

Jamie started up the basement stairs with Nera, but a quick hand motion from Layla stopped her. "There's somebody up there," she whispered. "Don't do anything rash for a minute." And don't blow, wind, either.

Ace still had the borrowed pistol, and he joined Layla as she moved oh-so-quietly to the outside cellar door. She slithered through (he was still impressed every time he saw a Wraith in action like that), motioning him to cover her, and found a nice set of handholds that would allow her to quietly climb the wall to where she could glimpse the living room where the noise was coming from ... and see Gault there eating breakfast.

Whew.

The two reversed their paths after Layla gave a quiet thumbs-up sign, and a moment later, they and the others were ascending the stairs, talking just a little louder than was strictly necessary; they wouldn't want to surprise Gault the way he'd surprised them. Faye, bless her heart, insisted on going first, and was the first to make eye contact with the man on the couch.

"Hi. We heard you come in," she said. "I hope your night was a little more conventional and peaceful than all of ours was ..." She saw his bandages.

"... Or not. What happened?"

[Hours]

'Got winged by a battlemage.' Gault explained offhandedly, 'went out last night to chase up my lead and the man's guards didn't take it too well when Mouse splattered his brains across the common room'

Gault just sat there munching on his breakfast, he didn't seem threatened by what was a suspicious gathering of armed people in the basement who were trying to be inconspicuous, in fact for all the look of him he didn't even have he strength to be able to use his gun for his bad arm.

'He kept all his information in his head unfortunately, but with any hope people would start talking about an exploding inn and these temple wizards will start to worry about moving too publicly. Thing with magic is that it's flashier than neccessary most of the time so it'll put people on watch. You're more likely to get some retaliatory action here meaning you can do something nasty with the portal and catch a few off guard, light a giant bonfire on it and see how they like teleporting into flames or similar.'

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I'm taking your muteness as a huge silent yes. let me know if you want anything changing Hours./OOC


The shorter man, the surly looking one, eyeballed Jade with an expression of naked contempt. 'Short man syndrome...' she thought, 'never takes much to set these charming gentlemen off'.

"Why don't you go and park your backside back against that corner girl? We'll pay when we're good and ready."

Jade's smile was still in place but the rest of her face suddenly wanted nothing to do with it. She gazed with cold eyes at the other two unwashed-looking mercs in attendance; the bigger man looked as if he was in need of a sick bucket, a jar of headache pills and a feather bed to slip into a coma on, the woman was poking her breakfast (virtually calcified in the sheer amount of grease the chef used to cook) with a lot more interest than was strictly necessary. Jade breathed a mental sigh of relief; no trouble from those two at least.

"Not an option, I'm afraid." The smile slipped into reverse, her voice took on a raw edge. "But if you want to stay on my good side you'll settle this little matter right now."

She saw his eye twitch, his shoulders and legs tense, all the indicators that the shit was about to hit the fan. Her hand grasped the hilt of her sword.

"We'll settle this, alright"

He moved with surprising speed round the table, drawing his own blade as Jade tugged hers free of it's scabbard and rose the lengthy weapon into a block. The clash of steel on steel immediately brought a rowdy cheer from the drunken patrons of The Mead and Drum. Jade could've sworn she heard the distinctive baritone of Rosh clucking in annoyance at his securities antics, but this was no time to be arguing with the boss. Jade knocked a thrust to one side to open her opponent up and threw her weight forward, driving her shoulder into the man's chest and sending him staggering backwards. He may have been drunk, but he recovered his guard relatively quickly, he clutched his aching breastbone and snarled at the red-haired woman.

Jade dropped into a lower stance and twirled the sword in a figure of eight, marvelling at how good it felt to be putting her 'baby' to good use again. The weapon was the product of four solid months of craftsmanship and late nights; the finest thing she'd ever made. And it wouldn't be letting her down anytime soon. Her opponent composed himself and tried again. He came in high, swinging his own sword in a downward swipe that Jade wheeled her body to one side to avoid. Steel bit into wooden floorboards. She returned the attack, swinging at his midriff, then reversing the direction of the blade as he blocked into a low sweep. There was a noise like tearing silk, the man let out a cry of pain and hobbled backwards, clutching his bleeding calf.

"Pay up, tough guy. Unless you want your friends to carry you out of here."

He didn't stop, the drunk and surly usually didn't. The man snatched a glass from the table and sent it hurtling in Jade's direction. She gave a grunt of surprise and ducked her head out the path of the oncoming missle. The man came forward in a tackling charge and swept Jade's legs from under her, their weapons clattered to the ground. He jockeyed for position, trying to get his hands around the woman's throat and throttle the life out of her. The patrons of the bar all winced as the grey-wearing fighter's angry curses turned into screams as Jade reached up and sank her thumb into the socket of his eye. He kicked free, scrabbling to his feet and clamping his hand over the red mass of pain. He turned back to face his opponent just as Jade recovered her blade and drove the weapon hilt-first into his temple. The man made a strangled noise and dropped to the ground, senseless.

In the silence that followed Jade went to one knee and liberated the coin purse from the unconscious man's belt, she pivoted and threw it to Rosh, who snatched it out the air with a noise that might've been approval. Jade turned and pointed a finger at the man's companions, who had watched the whole scene with a kind of weary resignation.

"You'd best be taking your friend home now." she said.