The Road to Salaband

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Jack Rothwell »

OOC Just a quick one to say I'm a little swamped atm. I'll be free and clear by wednesday once these doubles are out the way. 14 hour shifts suck, but at least they free up the rest of my week. :roll:

I'll try and get in earlier if I get the chance. I'll edit my reply in here if no-one posts in the meantime. /OOC


Jade gritted her teeth, feeling sullied and unusual in her current predicament. With a slow and uncomfortable stretch she leaned forward and put the bag at the entrance to the tent; she'd need both hands for the next part (OOC Giggidy./OOC).

Wrinkling her nose in distain, she turned into the sleeping Udo's embrace and wrapped her arms around him, angling her head so the knife in her teeth didn't puncture his ear and give his brain a tickling. Supporting his head, she lowered him gently to the ground with a mantra drumming in her head.

'Hug and roll, hug and roll, hug and roll..'

It was a technique she applied on those nights that her boyfriend was a little too 'suffocating' in their sleeping arrangement. And, after the first time he'd tumbled off the bed and gashed his forehead on a cupboard she'd used the trick with almost regular success. So she squeezed, trying not to inhale as she did, to gain some wriggling room, then followed the motion with a twist of her body to extricate herself from the arm around her back. The one which had been on her lap annoyingly, had travelled to somewhere softer and... rearwards on the blacksmith-turned-sneak-thief, which was lifted off a little less gently by a hand fighting the urge to squeeze the offending digits very hard.

With a barely audible grunt Jade rolled off the highwayman and freed her hugging arm in a manner similar to someone trying to scrape an omelette off a frying pan while listening for a pin drop. Finally, blessedly, free, she sat up and turned towards the tent flap...
Alberich
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Re: The Road to Salaband

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...and saw that the pack she'd taken from Udo was still there.

Aden was outside. He was close, all right, but he hadn't swiped the pack. He was definitely not looking right into the tent, but he was positioned so that he could have been a moment before. As it was he was merely standing guard in a squatting position.

He'd certainly seen the opportunity to grab these amazing valuables Jade had been talking about. He'd chosen not to. His primary reasons had been practical. Taking off with the pack, or even just with the pistol, would simply leave her angry and on his trail, and if she woke up Tubby and Choppy, then all three of them. No, it was better to wait the slow minutes out and keep to the deal. Aden didn't believe in making unnecessary enemies. (Though his threshold for "necessary" might be lower than some's.)
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Jade exchanged a nod with Aden as she exited and gently retrieve the pack from it's resting place. She did her best to conceal her relief that the prisoner hadn't decided to double-cross her when he'd had the opportunity. It was a far shot from earning her trust, but it was a start.

'Let's go.' She mouthed silently, jerking her head in the direction she'd come from.

OOC Sorry that took so long./OOC
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Alberich »

Jade's head indicated a walk back to Ester. Aden whispered back, "They'll have a harder time finding us if we go cross country to Thranel." However, if she insisted on Ester, he wouldn't fight that. Cross country in the dark wouldn't be easy. And either of these options beat forward to Havloc.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Jack Rothwell »

With breath ragged from exertion and fatigue Jade led the prisoner back down the route she'd followed for her approach; it had offered the best concealment after all. Somehow the trip back seemed longer with the additional weight of the liberated pack pressing into fingers which were eager to unwrap it. But the blacksmith didn't dare to halt until the pair were safely sheltered in the embrace of the sparse woodland which intermittently lined the road. With a scant signal to stop, and with no small amount of impatient clumsiness, she unslung the pack, fumbled the ties open, and looked inside.

And swore.
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Re: The Road to Salaband

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Aden had ambled along by Jade on the road back to Ester, not making needless chit-chat, and not showing any of the anxiety he ought to have been feeling. The moonlight didn't give her a good view of his face, but something about his whole body radiated amusement, as if he really had watched her recent maneuvers in getting extricated from the sleeping adventurer. (Ah, Udo. He wasn't just an adventurer. He himself was an adventure for others, even when he didn't know it.) But Aden, he wasn't saying a thing. He might be weary too but it wasn't showing if he was.

Jade's frustrated tearing and probing turned up no weapons, no folded halberds, no Yuuki staff components -- so she had cause enough to swear. Mostly it was just food in there. There were some papers as well, but in the shadow of the trees, there was no way to see what was on them.

"Didn't have your stuff?" asked Aden. "That's great! Means it's got to be back in town, 'cause I can tell you the Falkenrohr boys didn't give 'em anything but that pack. So unless it's something Tubby could eat, they got it in Ester.

"And the 'tater salad's pretty damn good if Tubby didn't glub it up. Little heavy on the mustard but I liked it."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: The Road to Salaband

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"Balls to the tater salad!" Jade snapped, as they trudged along the dark country road. "I just wasted half the night chasing after a dead end! I'm done. Back to ester, get my goods, get the fuck out of town. That's it."

No sooner had the blacksmith made the declaration her brow crinkled into furrows of sudden suspicion at her amiable, unwanted companion. She drew to a halt and eyed him squarely.

"Of course... that doesn't mean you couldn't have taken something out of the pack when I was dealing with the dishwasher..."
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Alberich »

Yup, thought Aden, potato salad with some guy's balls would be this gal's dream dish. Now she just needed to start showing an interest.

"Of course... that doesn't mean you couldn't have taken something out of the pack when I was dealing with the dishwasher..."

It was too dark to be sure, but that could have been a suppressed guffaw at the "dealing with"...anyway, the way Aden saw it, maybe this was it. The thought was alluring. But only if he didn't end up naked on a rock saying, "Yep, that went well."

"So you want to search me?" he said. "How do you propose to do it, so I'm sure I don't end up with a knife at my throat?" Or on the menu. He had a thought or two himself but liked to make her start proposing terms.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Just a quick pat down." Jade said evenly, not relishing the prospect of getting touchy-feely with the criminal, but shackled by unfortunate necessity. "Draw your gun if it makes you feel safer, because I'll certainly have a knife on you while I'm doing it. If you're on the level, great, we move on, if not... well... things'll get very messy, very quickly, and my clusterfuck of a day will be complete."
Alberich
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Re: The Road to Salaband

Post by Alberich »

Aden shook his head as he ambled along. "Doesn't work for me," he said. "You get up close with that knife, you know the right place to stick it, and I'm dead 'fore I can squeeze the trigger. And if I do squeeze it, or I do something makes you holler, Tubby and Choppy figure out which way I went, and that's not real good for my health. Not to mention yours.

"So, you want to search me, do it like this. You lay your knives on that rock over there. I lay this gun on this rock over here. We meet in the middle, I check you out to make sure you don't have another knife, you check me out to make sure I don't have the treasure you're looking for. Then we go back to our corners, get our stuff, be on our way."
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