Return to the Southern Continent

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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Graybeard
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC:
Jack Rothwell wrote:OOC What group exactly is the group getting on?/OOC
I assume Tamina, Drusia and Udo are boarding Khoo's little glider, to get away from the panicked crowd like the Homeland Security guy wants them to. In which case, a small plot left turn is about to happen, but only a small one. Note that Tsuirakushita does have a warp gate; else there'd be no way to get to Tsuirakushiti from there. So this whole digression can be abandoned quickly, if people want to, although I'm hoping they'll have some interactions on the surface first. /OOC:]

With a whssh, the glider was off, bearing Khoo and his passengers away from the chaos beneath the crumbling Tower of Artifex.

A few minutes later, it pulled into landing at a flat pasture area adjoining the lake that was directly beneath the sky city. Buildings of unmistakably Tsuirakuan manufacture, some crackling with magic, lined the lake shore and stretched some distance away from it. The grassy area looked to be some manner of park inside a city that was still clearly Tsuirakuan, but neither as densely packed nor as vertically built as what was above it.

Khoo let out an almost comical sigh of relief. "Tsuirakushita. Well, thank the Sea God we're away from that," he said. "We should be safe here until they get that thing stabilized. I --"

As if to punctuate his sentence, with a "WTF are you talking about, 'safe'?" connotation, a sizable piece of building debris arrowed down from above, hitting the lake with a massive splash. For a brief moment Khoo thought he could imagine a terrified human passenger clinging to that piece of debris before it struck. They would be beyond saving now ...

... And that was when Khoo's body chose to alert him to the fact that he'd been riding an adrenaline rush for altogether too long.

His heart raced, spots swam before his eyes, his hands trembled, he started to sweat, and in the end, his legs couldn't hold him anymore. With an inarticulate "buh...buh...buh," he sank into his seat on the glider and stayed there, shaking like a leaf.

[OOC: Opportunity for some collective world building here, although it's more constrained and less extensive than was Goriel. See this thread in the OOC forum.]
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Drusia
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Drusia »

I take a deep breath. And then another.

The glider isn't very similar to the ships we used in Malacia, but the screaming and terror is the same. Falling debris, however, is pointedly dissimiliar. Oddly, it helps - falling debris reminds me more of the Errant War.

Our waitor/savior seems to have passed out or something. I stand up, wipe my face on my sleeve, and turn to Udo and Tamina.

"Okay, first off, sorry for losing my cool back there," I tell them. "There was an... incident in my childhood. It was similar to what just happened. I promise, aside from towers on floating islands collapsing, there isn't much that will do that to me."

I glance over at the water. "Secondly, we should probably head further inland. There might be more things falling. I don't know how to work this glider, so we're going to have to walk. Udo - carry the waiter if you would."

I don't know my way around this area as well as I do Tsuirakushiti. Honestly, if I'm visiting Tsuiraku, I spend as much time as possible in Tsuirakushiti because it reminds me of Malacia. Most of the time it's comforting, like a lost piece of my life falling back into place. Honestly, if it was safe, I'd move the population of Snamish to Tsuirakushiti and give them back their birthright - the half elven city in the sky.

Ah well. That's a dream unlikely to ever happen.

"Let's move people," I say, leading the way inland.

-- Drusia

OOC: I wasn't sure if they were already in the lower city, or if they were on a beach near the lower city, so I didn't specify.
Edit: Oh, and if Khoo isn't entirely passed out, he can walk or protest the leaving of his glider of whatever - I wasn't sure how out he was either.
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Graybeard
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: I intentionally left it open as to exactly where this was, but since it was close enough to the central lake that everyone could see Tower debris plummeting into the water, best probably would be to call it a park inside the city, more or less set aside as a preserve against urban encroachment. We still need to "design" Tsuirakushita; see the relevant thread in the OOC section. As for Khoo...]

The notion of being slung over some large man's shoulder like a piece of luggage brought Khoo out of his case of the shakes. "Wait a moment, please," he said. Magic flared as he touched a button on the glider, which collapsed into a suitcase-sized parcel. This he then stowed in his Pocket Dimension, with another brief burst of magic.

"There," he said, still somewhat shakily. "This is only a glider, there is no power source on it, so we can't fly into town. We're just going to have to walk."
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina, with no small amount of effort, had managed to extract her claws from the timbers of the glider and put her feet on, blessedly, solid ground.

"Not at nice as town above." She said, as they walked into the settlement. "Think fish'll be cheaper down here?"

OOC Just thought you should know Grey, if I'd gotten my post in first I'd have had Tamina opt to carry Khoo in a piggyback (garlopback) type senario, better the lovely furball than slung over Udo's shoulders, don't you think? Ahh well, sadly the moment is past./OOC
Alberich
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Alberich »

"Not that way," said Udo. "That's Sitiripa district, right outside Fort Samiware. Nothing over there for us. Unless you need a loan 'til next payday. Or a patch sewn on your uniform. Or pick up some tips showing a little skaaagh, ah, let's don't go there. Not-there, that's where let's go."
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Drusia
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Drusia »

"Not that way," said Udo. "That's Sitiripa district, right outside Fort Samiware. Nothing over there for us. Unless you need a loan 'til next payday. Or a patch sewn on your uniform. Or pick up some tips showing a little skaaagh, ah, let's don't go there. Not-there, that's where let's go."

"I defer to your local expertice," I tell Udo. "Just get us away from the falling debris, please. And to a decent restaurant. We never got our entrees."

-- Drusia
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Graybeard
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Graybeard »

Khoo squinted in the bright sun, feeling very much out of his comfort zone. He'd only been down to the surface a few times since starting his studies at Sashi Mu. The recent times were all connected with flight testing of his thesis project, and afterward, he'd always retreated to the sky city as quickly as he could. However, he was pretty sure that now was not the time to beat a hasty retreat, given the chaos that seemed to have been breaking loose from whatever happened to the Tower of Artifex.

He gulped and approached Drusia, who appeared to him to be the leader of this motley crew. "May -- may I join you?"
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Alberich
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Alberich »

Woo-hoo! This guy just walked up and asked to "join" her? Well, if elves were as free about stripping down as they were in the old plays, maybe they'd take a direct line like that.

Meantime, he held up his staff, and made umbrella-like shields whenever debris fell their way. And he directed them towards the classiest establishment he could think of right on that block - Reiko's Rice Balls! Well, it was classy compared to other places an overpaid private might dash out to on a 45-minute lunch break. There weren't any visible insects most of the time, there was no overt nudity in the decor, and while the staff would flirt with the customers if they thought it meant a big tip, there wasn't any other kind of "business" going on in back.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"May -- may I join you?"

"Oh! Merry and more of us!" Tamina chipped in. "Wait... the more the merrier! You want to get the bad men too?"
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Re: Return to the Southern Continent

Post by Graybeard »

"Bad men?" Khoo echoed, completely misunderstanding Tamina's question. "Yes, of course I do." By which he meant the men who had caused the crash at the Tower of Artifex; like any sensible citizen of Tsuiraku, he wanted them brought to justice, if they hadn't perished in the attempt. It wouldn't occur to him until it was too late that the "bad men" these three were chasing were a different matter altogether.

"I don't know anything about places to eat down here," he continued, "but the main part of the city is that way." He gestured toward the tallest buildings visible on the horizon, which of course were in a different direction from where Udo was trending. As for that ... "You're heading toward the military base. I don't think you want to go there," he cautioned. That was the low-life part of town, and he'd had enough time to absorb the Sashi Mu culture, even though he was an outlier in it, that going to such an uncivilized locale was ... distasteful. One way or the other, the odd man was right about one thing; they had to get away from the debris field, even though not much was coming down any more.
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