Farrel: Ladies' Day Out

[Jack Rothwell]

"That him?"

Tamina looked at the hungover man perched at the bar, and hopped down from her seat with a growling noise at the back of her throat. Captain Rigby blinked sleepily and looked around, raising an eyebrow when he saw the kobold.

"Hey! I remember you." He hoisted his drink as if giving a toast. "Having a good time at the Port? Must be different from your home, am I right?"

Tamina clenched her fists and snarled, the animal inside her was roaring and begging to be let loose. She took a few steps towards him.

"Bad man!"

The Captain held the palm of his free hand out in a placating gesture, wincing slightly as the kobold's shout cut into his aching head. "Woah! Slow down furball. I'm sorry about your unplanned vacation, but that wasn't what me and my boys were there for. Those hunters on my ship paid handsomely to get to the Southern Continent and pick up some cargo. They captured you. They sold you. I was just sailing." He tried to smile winningly, revealing brown stumps that once upon a time might have been teeth. "But it looks like you're free now... you could always- urk!"

Tamina seized Rigby by his collar and hoisted him off his feet with strength propelled by pure anger. The kobold's eyes bulged in their sockets, her sharp teeth glinted wickedly in the early light.

"TAKE- ME- HOME!"

The Captain made a strangled noise, his short legs pinwheeling with nothing to stand on.

"Ok!" He croaked. "You-only-had-to-ask!"

With no small amount of self-control, she let go. The Captain hit the floor wheezing like an asmatic.

"I think I **cough** need another **wheeze** drink." He managed.

[Sareth]

Jamie laughed. "I need to learn negotiation skills from you! It would have taken me at least 60 seconds to get him to agree." She swigged down more of her beer, then waved to Anderson. "One for him, too." she slapped another coin down.

"So," she said, grinning. "That's that job done. Nice and safe and sound! And now I can work on Elke's little project with a balanced slate. So, no reason to stick around here." She stood up and took a step towards the door, then paused.

A paper just inside the door had a reasonable representation of her sketched on it, with a surprisingly large set of numbers beneath it. She peered closely at it, then glanced down at her chest, pulling her shirt outward to peer inside. "Must have been a male artist. I'm not that curvy." She sighed. "Or it may be time to skip town..."

[Jack Rothwell]

Tamina, now back under some degree of control, simply watched the Captain like a hawk as he got back on his bar stool and Jamie looked at the wanted poster.

"There was no need to get violent." He said in a weary, almost sulky voice. "I was going to offer to take you back anyway."

The kobold muttered something in her native language that sounded like 'Ral droof'. It probably didn't mean anything nice judging from the dark expression on her face. The Captain went back to his beer for the time being.

"Or it may be time to skip town..."

She turned to Jamie just as the teenager was examining her bust. Tamina cocked her head to the side, then walked over to her, put a pawish hand inside her collar and looked down her shirt with curiosity.

"Something interesting in there?" She looked up. "What's 'skip' town? We're skipping?"

Anderson watched the whole thing with disbelief and a deep-seated sense of survival that kept him pouring drinks. He was a practical man by all accounts, he'd tolerate any amount of strangeness as long as the weird duo were paying and the bar wasn't being destroyed.

[Graybeard]

"I've tracked them to the Dancing Troll," the Eisenfaust low-life reported to Elke.

Elke rolled her eyes theatrically. "That figures." The Troll was one of the few waterfront taverns that the Eisenfaust hadn't penetrated. Truthfully, they hadn't tried very hard. Old Anderson was known to run a tight ship, and his clientele didn't normally have much use for the kind of "services" the Eisenfaust specialized in providing. Elke also suspected that he had some powerful backers from some other guild, although she'd never been able to work out just who they were; they kept their noses scrupulously clean and didn't interfere with the Eisenfaust's business, so why stir up trouble?

"Just set up a stakeout," she sighed, "and be ready to bag them when they leave. Unless they make for that Waffenbruderschaft ship, anyway ... we should be so lucky."

[Sareth]

"Well, I'd like to think so," Jamie replied. "But this poster makes them look even more interesting. What do you think?" she grinned and flipped her shirt up in front of Tamina, then left herself exposed as she glanced over at the captain. "Got room for two more?" She left it open to interpretation if she meant herself and Nera, or her now exposed chest.

[Graybeard]

A grin spread across the captain's mouth that might have been a parody of an evil leer. "With that kind of ... merchandise, I think we can find room," he said.

----------

Something was itching in the back of Elke's mind as she settled back into her office. Might those two idiots actually find the Waffenbruderschaft ship? She'd really intended it more as a joke, and as a half-prayer to whatever gods might be out there beyond the Luminosita facade. But the way things had been going ...

She pulled out her "regular" crystal ball, placed a quick call to her informatics guy. "Titus? Elke. I need a report on the Waffenbruderschaft. Anything you can get within an hour, bring it here, hand-carry, in confidence so that nobody else sees it. Do it right and there's a small bonus for you." She didn't say what would happen if he did it wrong, just broke the connection.

Then she extracted the "other," highly irregular ball ... and started to place a call to the father of her unborn child.

[Jack Rothwell]

Tamina chuckled at the sight of Jamie disrobed once again, certain parts of her memories from the previous day were a little scrambled from the 'cocktail' she'd been under the influence of, but she remembered the nude teenager turning up outside the Eisenfaust headquarters when things were beginning to clear up.

"Can't keep your clothes on." She laughed again.

Captain Rigby had somehow torn himself away from the headlights and busied himself with the process of waking his men up and getting them functional for the journey. He strode from table to table, shaking awake the hungover crew and occasionally bellowing into a reluctant waker's ear.

"We're due to leave just after midday, if the weather permits... Biggs! On your feet maggot!" He coughed. "But I warn you now, furball. You get pawsy with me on the ship and you'll go... Wedge! Man overboard!"

The young man Rigby had just shouted at shot to his feet and, still-drugged by sleep, ran neatly into the nearest wall, half tearing his shirt in the attempt to prepare for a swim in imaginary seas. Rigby sighed theatrically.

"We'll be ready in an hour or so if these idiots know what's good for them. The Clark-" He pointed at an eastern-facing window "- is about ten minutes stroll that way. It's the modest but handsome ship with red and white sails."

"I 'member." The kobold muttered, suddenly losing her good humour.

..................................................

Robin Loklier was in much better humour than he had been a short time ago. His men's 'inquiries' had led them to The Troll on a somewhat winding course, but as they got within sight of the place the businessman saw a flash of fur and oversized ears pass a window that could only belong to the escaped kobold.

The next thing he saw was the men Elke had sent to stake out the place. He made an annoyed noise.

"Fine. Fine." He quietly seethed. "I get here last because no-one tells me anything." He hailed the group and motioned his men over to join them.

"Anything to report?"

OOC Just a note here. Rigby's ship would be an opportune time for new characters to be introduced since he already stated he offers lifts to paying customers, or if anyone want's to make up characters who'd be part of his crew that would also be fine./OOC

[Sareth]

Tucking her clothes back in place, Jamie grinned. "Sounds good," she replied. "Shall we?" She took one last pull of beer, then scooped up Nera and marched toward the door.

Once outside and headed toward the ship she laughed. "Wow, men can be idiots. Just flash a little tit and you rule the world. Shoot, I never said I'd let them sample the wares, and yet they didn't even suggest I pay!"

[Graybeard]

OOC: So do we want to fast-forward to this merry crew sailing the ocean blue? Don't worry about Elke, she can keep herself well amused. At least one new player/character is waiting to be introduced, and there are a couple of other odd ducks from the stable of NPCs that will have something to do too...

[Graybeard]

"I'm on it, don't worry," Mr. Stagpoole reassured the mother-to-be of his child. He broke the secure connection and went topside. Then he turned to his ship's regular first mate. "Keyes, I have a new assignment for you..."