Return to the Southern Continent

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I'm going to need to put the action on hold. I didn't agree to have the plot skip 18 hours forward and miss the warp gate scene/location, and Dru hasn't had the chance to add her thoughts on the subject yet. I suggested a couple of hours ahead til nightfall. I don't mind skipping to the warp gate if no-one's got anything to add before, that was going to be interesting scene. Can you put that post in after Grey?/OOC

[Graybeard]

OOC:

OOC I'm going to need to put the action on hold. I didn't agree to have the plot skip 18 hours forward and miss the warp gate scene/location, and Dru hasn't had the chance to add her thoughts on the subject yet. I suggested a couple of hours ahead til nightfall. I don't mind skipping to the warp gate if no-one's got anything to add before, that was going to be interesting scene. Can you put that post in after Grey?/OOC

Sure, just let the nasty trio proceed asynchronously, and be some hours of game time ahead of the good guys. I presume you'll still be using the travel platform (not warp gate) some time the next day, right?

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC That's the plan, man. /OOC

[Drusia]

OOC: I was intentionally staying out of the discussion. I had plans either way, but I didn't want to tip the scale to one side or the other. Since a decision has been reached, I shall now proceed.
Oh, and (having spoken briefly with Jack on the matter) I'm going to go ahead to the travel platform. /OOC

Uneventful. Good word at the moment. I never had the chance to slip away, but I suppose Rose and the others must be far enough afield now. At least I hope so.

I tried contacting Sar, but it seems she's occupied at the moment, so for now anyway I'm on my own - aside from Tamina and Udo, that is. I gave Sar the info about where I was heading, so she might be able to catch up with us - she knows the platform too.

Speaking of which: "There it is," I say aloud, nodding at the ruinied-seeming columns. Tamina seems excited - Udo seems skeptical. I walk up to the stones and get to work.

"It'll just take a few minutes to warm up," I tell them. Not entirely true - but it wll take me a few minutes to muck with the safteys a bit.

That's the thing - only about half of these old platforms are still in full working order. For most peregin, that means the damaged half are off the grid. Not so for an transposition specialist. With the right spells, I can compensate for a damaged platform's issues - assuming I know what they are. With enough work, I could even connect in to a Tsuirakuian gate, although that would likely be bumpier and we're not in that much of a hurry. Also, the gate or this platform might explode a little afterwards, and I'd rather not be involved in any explosions today.

So, instead, we'll take a little side trip.

"Ready?" I ask Tamina and Udo, smiling mysterious. I still need to do a couple more things, but by chatting I give the illusion that I'm finished even while I'm visualizing our landing area. That's important - with the safteys off, this thing could materalize us in a solid wall. I have to compensate. Fortunately, I've gotten damn good at not appearing in walls over the centuries.

-- Drusia

OOC: Oh, and I have an arrival location in mind if no one else does. It's a town with a canon gate and enough elven ruins to hide a semi-broken platform in. If you have somewhere else in mind, let me know (here or via PM) so I can adjust my next post (which will occur after Udo/Tamina reaction posts).

[Jack Rothwell]

Tamina was fairly bouncing on the spot in anticipation of using the ancient elven device.

"Never used a tel-e-port before!" She exclaimed, beaming wider at pronouncing the word correctly, if meticulously. "Killikah back home gonna be jealous! It's safe? The old magics? You'll... umm..." She stopped bouncing for the moment, much to Udo's disappointment. "You'll take care of me... ahh... us?" She added. "Be bad to wind up in the sky with no wings."

[Drusia]

"Never used a tel-e-port before!" She exclaimed, beaming wider at pronouncing the word correctly, if meticulously. "Killikah back home gonna be jealous! It's safe? The old magics? You'll... umm..." She stopped bouncing for the moment, much to Udo's disappointment. "You'll take care of me... ahh... us?" She added. "Be bad to wind up in the sky with no wings."

No elf - or mage - worth her salt would pass up a straight line like that.

"Ah," I say, smiling mysteriously, "But the sky is exactly where we're going."

The platform is charged. I have the target pictured - I was there less than a week ago, when Sar contacted me about her situation in the north. The platforms feel like my shorter range version, but larger, wider - and somehow just a little off. I feel the same way in Tsuirakuian gates, for entirely different reasons - they feel tighter and louder.

Not that these things are quiet.

KRAAK

Reality warps and the picture in my mind becomes the reality we're standing in.

Specifically, we're standing in a garden. The ancient columns of the travel platform are overgrown with ivy and climbing roses, and a fountain has been installed in the center. We're all up to our ankles in it. All around us is a beautiful metro park, a slice of aesthetically maintained nature in the center of a massive city.

Half a dozen random bystanders are staring at us. Let them - without the proper knowledge, this platform is inert. Besides, as far as they know, I just teleported here under my own power.

Tamina looks thrilled. Udo looks surprised.

"Welcome to Tsuirakushiti," I say, stepping out of the fountain.

-- Drusia

[Alberich]

"You'll take care of me... ahh... us? Be bad to wind up in the sky with no wings."

Udo put a reassuring arm around her, because he would do that on any excuse. "I've been there recently," he said. "We'll survive it!" Which was probably true - as long as he kept hold of his staff he could probably get them down in safety. Provided there was a safe place to land, and no enemies firing up at them, or crap like that...

KRAAK! "Welcome to Tsuirakushiti."

When Udo saw where he was getting wet, he was full of glee, and made a squish jump on the grass. "Yeah!" he said. "My native soil!" -- well, it was mostly his native pavement, but here in the park it was soil. As if to emphasize his thought, he slipped on a bit of litter and flopped out on that same soil, and on an inspiration gave the ground a kiss before hauling himself up. Returning soldiers sometimes did that. In his own mind, within seconds, that was just what he'd meant to do all along.

This wasn't a part of town he knew, but Tsuirakushiti was Tsuirakushiti, and it was gorgeous any time of year. "You know this neighborhood?" he asked. "'cause I've got a yen for a civilized meal 'fore we push off into the wilderness again. Like some raw fish, for example."

[OOC: btw, anyone know if Angrist's coming back, since the summer's over? I think this would be the thread for him if so.]

[Graybeard]

Peregin Bauti swore a particularly lurid stream of elven expletives as first Arsoro Kurou, then Haniko Goto arrived at the platform, puffing hard. "Dammit, we've lost them," she said, rather unnecessarily.

Goto, who had been husbanding her strength to make sure she could cast something lethal on arrival, recovered before her countryman. "That is unfortunate," she said blandly. And, of course, your fault. "However, perhaps we can take advantage of the situation from a tactical perspective. They're not far ahead of us. We can make preparations here, at leisure, and then follow them and catch them unawares." Her eyes got that mad glint in them again as she considered what she'd do to Cleiviein once they got to wherever they were going. (Of course, it never occurred to her that Argus might not have the same destination as the party that had just gated.)

Kurou had nothing to add to this; truthfully, he wasn't in a position to add much of anything to anyone's conversation. At the moment he was simply trying not to have a heart attack from the uncustomary exertion. Bauti, however, wasn't finished. "It's not that simple." Although you two are simpletons. "For one thing, we're locked out of using this platform for a couple of hours, a safety feature to prevent magical overload. For another, we don't know where they gated to."

"Ah, but surely you can look at the log for the platform and deduce that." Goto's tone was half a mockery of conciliation, half raw condescension, as she might have used when talking to a slow child.

The elf glared at her. "This thing doesn't have a logging function," she half-snarled. (She was learning to moderate her speech around these two, in that typically irritating Tsuirakuan way, or so she thought, mistakenly.) "When we use travel platforms, we don't want anyone to know where we've gone unless we tell them, which we have -- means to do." She didn't want to talk about the portal receivers and their communications capabilities. "Security feature."

"Ah, I see," Kurou managed to get out; his body was still wheezing, but he was already considering how to use this information to his advantage later, as of course was Goto. "Well, then (wheeze), it appears that we (wheeze) have little choice but to (wheeze) go home and regroup." He felt ironically proud of himself that he'd managed to get through that sentence without doubling over in pain.

"Indeed," Goto nodded, taking careful note of her countryman's continuing physical distress; that too might be useful. "A pity that there is no elven travel platform(*) in our city. Our roundabout method of getting here will just have to be reversed." The three settled in to wait for the platform to become active again, each plotting what they'd do to Drusia and Argus once they got hold of them.

[OOC: (*) The party having gated into Tsuirakushiti is actually a minor breach of canon. Sarine more or less indicated that the elves don't have a way of doing that directly, but must use Tsuirakuan warp gates to get to Tsuirakushiti, having first gated into a temporary elven platform near a human city with a warp gate. Of course, she's also said that she doesn't know everything, and obviously that applies to the other elves too, so maybe there's a platform there that she and Bauti don't know anything about, but Drusia does. We'll want to be very cautious about using it, though, to avoid clashes with canon.]

[Jack Rothwell]

"Welcome to Tsuirakushiti,"

Tamina leaped out of the shallow foundation with a delighted cry. She seemed to look in every direction at once as she took in her surroundings, which did nothing to stop the stares and murmurs of the bystanders at the new arrivals.

"Hey, is that a catgirl?"

"Kobold!" Tamina called, although her exhilaration made the usual angry snap a happy proclamation instead. "That was 'mazing Drusy! We were there, and then we were here and then... oh..." She finally noticed her damp feet with a disapproving look.

"You know this neighborhood? 'cause I've got a yen for a civilized meal 'fore we push off into the wilderness again. Like some raw fish, for example."

"Yeah! But towel first." She agreed. "Y'made me wet Drusy."

OOC Is tsuirakushiti anywhere near tsuiraku town?/OOC

[Graybeard]

OOC:

OOC Is tsuirakushiti anywhere near tsuiraku town?/OOC

Just to repeat what I told JR in a PM, in game terms, when we talk about "Tsuiraku-town," we're talking about a district in the Farrelian city of Rinkaiel, on a totally different continent and country than Tsuirakushiti, capital of Tsuiraku. It's the difference between, say, Chinatown in San Francisco, and, well, China, or at least Beijing.

There's also a Tsuiraku-town district in Port Lorrel, and it's credible that there would be one in other large cities in Farrel (e.g. Isabel) if we ever go there. Veracian relations with Tsuiraku being what they are, comparable districts in Saus and Lorenzel are unlikely, although we have seen a small Tsuirakuan presence among the smugglers in tiny Nautkia. They're probably there in Lorenzel, but unlikely to be organized into an ethnic enclave like the Tsuiraku-town in Rinkaiel. A Tsuiraku-town in Emerylon? Completely out of the question, of course.

As for Tsuiraku-towns in the Northern Confederacy, who knows? There must be stranger things than that up there.