Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

Post by Graybeard »

Layla glanced up, trying to keep a neutral face, and was reassured to see that Leo was trying to do the same. As she did, she noticed something possibly significant. The Kitaura henchman apparently known here as "Brother Cosimo" had stepped forward to comfort Sister Joli, or so anyone watching proceedings would think. Magic glowed briefly around his hands ... and Joli stopped sobbing. It was all so brief that an observer without magical sensitivity might not even have seen the glow, but Layla could feel magic being used, as if the air had become greasy for a moment.

She decided it wouldn't do to pretend she didn't know Leo; a security man, as Brother Cosimo appeared to be, would be naturally inclined not to believe in coincidences, and to treat any apparent coincidence as something suspicious and to be investigated. On the other hand, it also wouldn't do to raise too many suspicions about why they were here.

An inspiration dawned, based on one of the Sacred Artifacts she'd seen in the lobby. "Damn," she said. "I wanted to talk to them about getting their sacramental wine from us." She had no idea whether the Temple of the Divine Dwarf actually used wine in their rites or not, but given that the sign by the Artifact had called it a Sacred Wine Chalice, it seemed like a good bet. (To Layla the Artifact had looked rather more "high-tech" than a chalice, and if she'd been able to read the dwarven script etched on the side -- "DO NOT EXCEED 3000 REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE"(*) -- she'd have had no doubt she was correct. Of course, who could tell about such things?) "It's not a good day for it, obviously. I'm afraid that Mr. Oshima here --" she gestured at the corpse, hoping Leo would get the reference -- is beyond help. As for the woman, presumably the Temple will take care of its own." She straightened. "We'll have to conduct our business here some other time."

With a last, murmured word of comfort to Joli, she followed Leo through the office and out the hallway, hoping that "Brother Cosimo" wouldn't notice that Leo had appeared not through the office, but from the concealed corridor beyond -- in vain.

[OOC, and slightly spoilerific: (*) To see a line drawing of this Artifact (at least what the Artifact would be part of), look here, then here. Actually, the temple's opinion that this thing would be used for dispensing holy fluids isn't that far from the truth...]
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Leo kept silent until he was reasonably sure the pair were out of earshot of the group which had assembled at the scene of the carnage. He leaned in conspiritally and tried to keep his voice low.

"Didn't expect to see you here madam." He said, relaxing back into his more informal but foppish demeanour. "Did you find anything out while I was gone?"
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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"Did you find anything out while I was gone?"

Layla pressed a finger to her lips, calling for silence until they had stepped through the outside door of the Temple. She took a quick peek to the right, saw Ace and Galina (and Oxana) sitting in the carriage awaiting her return ... and went left, using a typically weird Sacred Artifact (a huge, conical vat labeled "Sacred Dwarven Oven," but she'd never seen an oven with gears attached to it before...) by the entrance as cover. There was a quick subject she wanted to raise with Leo, and not only did she not want anyone in the Temple to hear her question, she didn't want Galina to hear it either.

"What do you know about the Oshima clan?"

[OOC: Take a look at the fourth image on this page for a sense of the "Sacred Dwarven Oven," although the one at the Temple of the Divine Dwarf isn't nearly as big as Roger Angel's. Hey, even the dwarves had to do quarter-scale prototyping...]
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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Leo shrugged at Layla's question, thinking back to an independant investigation he'd conducted a few days before that involved the group in question.

"There's a lot of them. They have numerous businesses and connections all over town and they're all as bent as a 9-raku note." He smiled a mouthful of polished, white teeth at the lady by his side. "Aren't they the group that sold you the vineyard? Do I win the prize?"
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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"Aren't they the group that sold you the vineyard? Do I win the prize?"

[OOC: Funny ... could have sworn I posted a reply to that over my lunch hour. Apparently not, so: /OOC]

Layla raised an eyebrow at that. "Not quite, but close. My boyfriend says the actual owners were something else, some common name in Farrel -- you know, 'Smithiel' or something equivalent." She couldn't tell whether Leo had responded to this feeble attempt at a joke, so she went on. "But he also says he found out that they had backing by the Oshimas, so yeah, you're right enough. And there's more." She went on to describe the visit to the Temple of the Divine Dwarf by an archmage named Oshima. "Finally, the guy who followed you into that sausage slicer was the son of an Oshima, according to Joli. So I think we have to assume they've infiltrated the temple. Think about that, and don't say anything about it over lunch; I don't want my friend Galina in on that part of the story yet." She stepped out of concealment and waved to Ace and Galina, and the carriage started over to where they stood.

[OOC: And with that, JR, we have a thing or two to work out offline as regards the Oshimas and Leo. I'd say go ahead and do with Eve, Jade, Rufus, etc., whatever you want to, but we may have to pause this part of things briefly. I'll explain in a PM.]
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

Post by Jack Rothwell »

OOC Cool cool, I've got stuff I can write about leading up to the next plot twist./OOC

Jade had had a fairly uneventful day, which was just how she liked it when it came to plying her original trade. She'd spent the morning making the most of the forge that Leo had temporarily remanded to her custody. In fact, the emotions in her chest were similar to a fat kid in a candy shop when she'd arrived, virtually skipping across the racks of readily available materials for her to begin the conversion of the blue golem's weapon into something fitting to be weilded by a human being.

The object on the workbench in front of her fairly crackled with barely repressed power. The slight burn on her forearm was testament to that fact, and par for the course when it came to messing around with technology she didn't fully understand. She 'd dismantled the clasps and framework of the oversized blade so it sat apart from its original design, and was currently cutting a groove in the length of a collapsible staff to fit the dangerous weapon on. On impulse, she picked the handle up, swung it in an arch and pressed the button on its shaft to release the lock, it unfolded in a fluid motion that brought a smile to the blacksmith's lips.

"So far, so good." She said.
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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[OOC: OK, I think we can move things forward at least a little... /OOC:]

Layla climbed into the carriage, and after exchanging kisses with Ace, beckoned to Leo and made introductions. "Galina, Leo is one of the people we got to help look into this damned place. Leo, Galina is who they approached to start the investigation. So we're finally at least on the same page."

Ace nodded. "Usual place for lunch?" He started to move the wagon toward the appealing little coffee house by the park, but Layla stopped him.

"No, for this one, I think we should get out of Tsuiraku-town." A lifted eyebrow in her boyfriend's direction left little doubt that compliance wasn't optional. "Maybe we can look for somewhere close to the Tsuirakuan consulate and just drop Galina off afterward?"

That met with everyone's approval, so Ace started onto a road out of the Tsuiraku-town district. However, they didn't get very far before traffic slowed to a halt owing to a commotion of panicked pedestrians. They were running away from an intersecting side street ...

... And then, barreling through the intersection and crossing the street in front of them to continue out of sight, the passengers on the carriage could see the gigantic, glowing, magical figure of a dog.

"What the hell was that?" three out of four (five, counting baby Oxana) passengers said at once ... and then turned as one to look at Leo, the only adult aboard who hadn't asked the question.

-----------

The mage who had cast the spectral hound had forgotten something important. As soon as enough magical energy had built back up for him to re-form the magical beast, he sent it off with certain instructions ... but lulled into complacency by the belief that none of the non-magical barbarians could possibly have penetrated the temple, he failed to limit the area it would be searching to Tsuiraku-town, where such things, arguably, were easier for the populace to take in stride. The phantasm had picked up Eve's spoor quickly enough... and now it was heading for Barker Lane.
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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"Trouble." Leo replied, something like fear cresting in his face. "It chased Eve. Caught her actually. And now it appears to be heading in the direction of my guild."

He looked at the assembled group around him, unconsciously reaching for the weapon on his waist as he did.

"Can we make a detour? I think lives may be in danger."

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

Eve arrived at the guild slightly out of breath and more than a little pissed-off. The humiliation of being treated like a bloody stick by that dog thing was stinging her almost as sharply as the burn on her leg and sharp smell of toasted leather which she was sure wouldn't wash out anytime soon. She hammered on the front door impatiently and brushed past Bert (one of the newer recruits) with a face full of thunder.

"Easy pretty gal, what's wrong?"

"A clusterfuck, that's what." Eve snapped. "Where's the Captain?"

"Top floor." Bert replied, flinching slightly at the woman's angry demeanour even though he stood a good six inches taller than the tomboy. "He said to see him when you got back."

Eve stomped to the foot of the stairs.
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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"Can we make a detour? I think lives may be in danger."

Layla looked doubtful. "That thing is moving faster than we are. I assume you think it's heading for your -- apartment, right? By the time we get there, whatever's going to happen will have happened. But what the hell, it's almost on our way..."
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Re: Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

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Maybe it was just bad luck that Bert was still standing by the door when Eve put a foot on the bottom stair of the barker lane guild. But when the portal exploded inward the thought flashed through the young woman's mind that the situation was somehow her fault. That if she'd informed Bert he would've escaped without a scratch instead of being knocked hard to the floor in a shower of wooden chunks and trampled underneath the paws of the magic hound that had caused her such aggrivation a short time before.

Eve didn't waste time drawing her weapon, her mind immediately went into survival mode and she raced up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her, heedless of the pain flaring through her leg as it slammed onto the wooden steps.

"RUFUS!" She shouted. "TROUBLE!"

The creature was still dammably fast, but the mercenary had the small advantage of being more agile on two legs at negotiating the steep steps. It didn't stop the magical beast from gaining on her and, worse, the only way was up. A leap to the ground floor in her current state would only present of risk of damaging her already messed up limb. Her heart fluttered with desperate relief as she heard Rufus' answering shout from the top floor, telling her to get to him. Her surrogate father; trying to protect her.

She hit the second flight of stairs just before the dog cleared the first, it had to take a slightly longer course to align itself with the steps. Eve knew she didn't have long, ten seconds max before the creature caught up with her, and this time she doubted it would just be carrying her to its master.

She cleared the final steps four seconds and a hundred years later. She saw Rufus immediately and understood what he meant to do. He stood in a rifleman's stance carrying the lethal looking weapon Jade had given to him the day before, and was looking down its sights with a grim expression etched into his craggy features. The young mercenary didn't need to be told what to do. She threw herself into a forward roll that cleared the Captain's line of sight as the thaumato-hound reached the final floor and wheeled towards its intended victim, jaws wide to tear its prey to pieces.

There was a blinding flash as Rufus squeezed the trigger of the mana-rifle. For all his old age and unruly hip, he was still a dead-eye shot. A bolt of lightning erupted from the barrel in a pinpoint line that crashed squarely into the open mouth of the pursuing monster.
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