Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

For in-universe game play. Journey through both familiar and foreign settings, explore lost ruins and forgotten cities, and try to bring light to the darkness of the world... or, you know, blow stuff up. Either way.
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Graybeard
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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Dropla, Rip thought. Big rhino-thing. With a rhino's disposition? Better not go that way ... But then he noticed something. Following along with the dropla's tracks were droplas, er, droplets of blood. This got him thinking ...

Rip had never been an archmage-level virtuoso of any of the usual areas of Tsuirakuan magic. Combat magic hadn't particularly stuck with him (it had improved in the last month or two out of necessity, but still wasn't first-rate), and the more "industrial" spellcraft had never appealed to him, since he'd never had any desire whatever to go into the business world. However, he'd picked up odd little tricks from all over the thaumatic place, some of which had served him well during his privateering days, and others of which had had unexpected uses in his academic fieldwork -- just as might be expected in the professor at a second-rate college that he'd once been.

It was one of that last group of spells that he now summoned, a Forensics spell similar to the Affinities spell that had widowed Sister Rose years earlier; similar, but castable by one person rather than a whole Special Forces squad, Tsuirakuan magical superiority being what it was. He concentrated on a drop of blood that had fallen on a convenient leaf, concentrated on a bit of the blood from Shorty's parachute harness ... and they both glowed with magic.

"Match," he said. "I can't tell whether this trail is dropla blood or something else, but whatever it is, it's the same thing as on the harness."

He couldn't help himself; he adopted a theatrical pose pointing in the direction the tracks were leading.

"Follow that dropla," he orated like a bad actor.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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"<This seems like a bad idea.>"

"<Don't fret Tammy. I'm sure everything'll be fine.>"

The past several minutes had been largely uneventful, apart from Tamina's brief stumble over a protruding root and some colourful cursing in the Killikah tongue, Dropla's tended to quieten the other wildlife down when they went for a stroll. Alleece had taken the opportunity to clue their holidaying friend on a few more details on their quarry.

"Rhino-thing is a pretty good description; 'though I've never seen a Rhino outside of books." She said. "They've got wider, flatter heads and a horn like a shovel to clear the undergrowth." She pointed unnecessarily to the broken branches to illustrate her point. "They've got shaggy hair as well."

"They rub 'gainst damp leaves, roll in puddles to get wet. Keeps 'em cool." Tamina said. "The boys got a stupid game they like to play with 'em."

"Dropla riding." Alleece continued. "They drop on the dropla from the tree branches and... surf? Is that the word? on them. Usually until they break something."

"...and I have to fix them. Stupid cabra tals*"

Alleece made a hissing noise a raised a hand for silence. Tamina understood immediately, the pair went down on all fours and pressed their ears to the ground under the bemused gaze of their companion. After a moment Tamina nodded.

"It's on the move. Southwest. Pretty slowly." She informed Rip. "If we pick up the pace we should catch up quick."



*- shit heads
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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For a brief moment, Rip considered going back to Tsuirakushiti and trying to sell the T-book(*) idea he'd just had. A first-person tale about surfing on the back of a dropla ... I bet a lot of people would pay for that, weirdly enough. Then the idea passed, which was just as well.

He turned his attention back to the trail they were following, and it wasn't long before he noticed something very interesting. There was a large gout of blood on the trail, as though a wound had opened or a clot had torn away. The blood on the trail got considerably heavier from there. But what was really interesting was the knife found in the middle of the blood ...

... A knife that he was quite sure had come from his defunct airship's tiny galley.

"Getting optimistic about Shorty," he observed to no one in particular.

(*) [OOC: "T-book" = "thaumatic book," in case it wasn't obvious.]
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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Tamina saw the blood, heard rip's remark and added it up to a puzzled look. If someone had been injured, they were more so now.

"How come?" She asked.
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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"Looks like maybe Shorty managed to stab the dropla," Rip answered. "Or at least I think so. Give me a sec ..."

He repeated the Forensics spell, got that same glow again from the big clot of blood ... But then he frowned. "Uh, oh. Most of this blood is the same as what was on the harness. But look here." A small puddle at the side of the big one was not glowing. "Two different blood sources, and one of them didn't start until this big pool here got opened. Maybe he stabbed it, hard, but it was able to do him a little damage while he was doing it?"

That was the interpretation he hoped for, anyway; the others were probably worse.
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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OOC, and a note to Jack: Haven't seen you in a while; having computer issues, clobbered password, maybe? If so, I can fix it once I get back to my "home" computer middle of next week and my powers of admin-fu kick back in. Don't lose hope! Rip and Thurston will still be waiting ... I will move the other thread forward a little with some "background noise" regarding Elke and the Eisenfaust.
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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"Dropla's stopped." Tamina said, with her hands pressed to the floor. "Might've found it's home, or one of it's herd might be cleaning it's wounds. Not sure where your friend could be. Dropla don't eat people; much less carry 'em off."

"Shoooooooorrrrr-tyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Alleece called, earning a sharp look from the kobold mage. "Help's here!"

The younger humanoid's call faded away. Tamina noticed the silence was becoming quite oppressive.
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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[OOC: Hey hey!! Glad you're back! Just volleying it back to you here...]

For a few seconds, Rip was hopeful after the kobold's call, not so much from a hope that Shorty would answer as because he didn't think the kobolds would do anything to put Shorty (or, for that matter, himself) in greater danger. He relaxed slightly -- but then, when there was no more noise, he started to get discouraged again.

And then, there was a faint, curiously high-pitched call from out in the distance, no obvious words, but something along the lines of "Mrple."

Rip broke out a broad grin as he turned to his puzzled-looking comrades. "See, for an absolutely humongous man, Shorty has this weirdly quiet, high voice ..."
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Tamina beamed; it hadn't really struck her how sure she was that Shorty would've been swallowed whole by the jungle.

"Yay!"

"Hope he's ok to walk by himself." Alleece added. "If he's as big as you say we sure as heck can't carry him."

"Keep eyes peeled for the Dropla." The mage warned. "Let's have a trample-free day."
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Re: Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

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About this time, Thurston came winging back from his tryst with "Dorrie," grinning ear to ear (or whatever passed for that expression with a parrot). Rip didn't wait for him to refuse to give details; he just started filling him in on the situation. "Now, go see whether that's Shorty, and whether he's alive, and how to rescue him, and all that," he concluded. Thurston nodded and was off.

About ten minutes later, he came winging back at full speed, and lit on Rip's shoulder. "Gimme a cigar," he panted.

"As soon as you tell us what you saw," Rip said, fishing a cigar out of a pocket but not lighting it yet.

"RAAAWWK. Well, Shorty's alive, all right, and you're not gonna believe this..."

[OOC: So what did Thurston see? I dunno, got any ideas?]
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