Southern Continent: Picking Up The Pieces

[Jack Rothwell]

Oolan couldn't stifle a loud laugh at Rip's amendment. Several of the natives turned to look at her as she sought to hide behind Shorty and stifle her attack.

"Warn me next time!" She managed, bucking involuntarily as aftershocks of humour ran through her. "If you're done with sabotaging the merchandise did you want to grab a drink? Killikah cocktails'll get you full of buzz and zip!"

What the group didn't notice was that Oolan's antics had drawn the attention of a couple of burly kobolds with symbols on their arms...

....

Some hundred metres above the group the doors to Braccus' hut opened, and a downcast Tamina began making her way back to the jungle floor.

[Graybeard]

"Not 'sabotaging' but 'improving,'" Rip said plaintively. "Tsuirakuans will pay big bucks for customized goods like that, if any ever come here. But yeah, I'm good for a drink." Shorty nodded quiet agreement.

[OOC: Just volleying it back over the net. I'm just not sure what to do here.]

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC No problem man. Here's a little something to interact with.../OOC

The front of Haadin's was relatively empty as Oolan and the humans took their seats in front of the bar. The bartender, distinguished by the fact he was behind the bar rather than anything as a concession to a uniform, took the fellow Kobold's order without comment, not even sparing a look for the non-Killikah she was present with.

"It's called Seshque." She explained, raising her shell. "S'got a mix of fermented coconut, mango, spices and tree snake blood for an extra kick. It's good for... physical activities." Her meaningful look at Shorty was a subtle implication of what kind of activities those might be. She took a deep draught and leaned back with a sigh as stress began to drift away.

And that was when the trouble started.

One of the Draalshin who'd been watching them took that moment to walk past the group and 'stumble' into the back of the smaller humanoid, knocking Oolan off her perch with a surprised yelp and spilling her drink on the ground in a shameful waste of alcohol. The Draalshin's friend quickly joined him, and the pair at her glared together. The bartender took a sudden interest in the bottles on the back wall.

"<What's this?>" The pusher intoned. "<Some outsider coming into our village and obstructing one of Braccus' personal guards?>"

"<Littering too.>" Said his comrade, pointing to the mess on the ground. "<You've got some nerve, Kaalshiir*>"


*low class/servant

[Graybeard]

Shorty simply shrugged his huge shoulders and started cleaning up the mess; he'd always been chivalrous about such things. Rip, however, started to think rapidly. Cleaning up the mess wasn't going to solve this problem, he was sure of that. He could probably do significant damage to one of the bullies with a Force Bolt, even though he wasn't a battlemage. However, the other bully would then do very significant damage to him. Not to mention the likelihood that the barkeep would have some way of calling the local gendarmes, who would respond in force, and that wouldn't end well.

Then he remembered some of the magic that he used for repairs on the airship.

He'd have to time it perfectly, because it would involve casting three spells in very rapid succession, no more than a second apart. The first one was trivial. It was the second that would require some concentration. Once he'd steeled himself, he cast. First was simple mind-speech to Shorty. <"Get ready to take a big step toward Oolan, scoop her up, and then run. You'll know when."> The huge man blinked, but it was clear that he got the message.

The second spell was the tricky one. Every bar in creation, in Rip's considerable experience, had a bowl somewhere on the counter containing munchies of some kind, whether crackers or nuts or who-knows-what. This one's munchies appeared to be small, cherry-like fruit that were unfamiliar to him. Good; they'd be just about perfect raw materials. As Oolan hemmed and hawed and tried to be reasonable in an unreasonable situation, he set tiny puffs of magic, too small for a non-magic user to detect (or at least so he hoped), toward the basket of fruit, and extended his will ... and just like the roll on the Bonny Read that had been fossilized into something like a blackjack, these small fruits quickly assumed the consistency of ball bearings. Perfect!

The third spell was easier; he just had to make sure he was positioned so no one could accuse him of casting it. There, he was well away from the bar, and he cast. A small, magical, (theoretically) invisible Push sufficed to knock the basket of ball-bearing-fruit off the counter and directly under foot where the thugs were standing. The floor was immediately covered with things that, in a technological society, would have been designed exactly to reduce friction between moving surfaces ... like, say, feet and floors. So also here.

He risked a fourth spell, one last word of mind-magic to Shorty: <"NOW!">


[OOC: OK, there's the retcon. Note that if it fails, Rip's next step would be a Tanglefoot spell, which we have seen in (very effective) action on several previous occasions. However, it's a lot harder to pass than one off as non-magical compared to the fossilization of fruit that were probably getting old anyway.]

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC The bar's more of shack than a proper building. The bar itself is open to the street so people sitting on the stools would be actually be outside https://forums.errantstory.com/viewtopi ... =70#p42803 . So the angle the chandelier would have to travel would be really slanted to clear the bar and hit the bullies. I can run with that if you like; but it would blow Tamina's warning about avoiding using magic in the village as people would know something supernatural just happened, and either Oolan or Shorty would get the blame as Rip hid what he was doing.

Let me know whether you want to edit or let it stand . I'll post accordingly./OOC

[Graybeard]

OOC: OK, I'll retcon. It'l be something conceptually similar: an action that has magic behind it (Rip isn't much of a combat guy) but in a way discreet enough that it shouldn't be noticed unless someone is specifically looking at it. [EDIT: And retconned.]

Bios for Kevin and Annabelle in the other threads coming in an hour or two. "Shelter in place" doesn't mean that commitments don't have a way of finding you ...

[Jack Rothwell]

Fortune was on Rip's side.

The lead thug stepped forward with a raised hand just as the hardened fruit rolled under his foot. He lost his balanced with an indignant squawk and fell with a crash courtesy of the armour he was wearing. His flailing limbs caught his companion and knocked him backwards into more of the magic fruit, causing a brief domino effect that finished with both men on the floor.

The tearful Oolan found herself scooped up and hauled away by her giant companion. She breathlessly pointed the pair in the direction of the rest of their group as they sped away and bystanders stood around wondering what the hell had just happened.

..........

They found Alleece and the rest of the kobolds shopping at the opposite end of the market. The young humanoid looked up in surprise as she stuffed a bag full of herbs into a knapsack.

"Guys! What in Spirits name is going on?"

"Draalshin!" Oolan cried, finally getting her voice back. "They pushed me over. I-I though they were going to- to-"

Alleece groaned, Dochi looked nervous, Riiki and T'ska bristled

"Just as well we finished our business then." She said. "Come on. Let's get the wagon, get Tamina, and get out of here."

Oolan, for her part, turned around and threw herself back in Shorty's arms even though it was Rip who really deserved the credit.

"My hero." She whispered. "Thank you."

It was at that moment Tamina appeared with a downcast look on her face that made any cheerful greetings die in her friend's throats. The mage slinked over, her eyes planted firmly at the ground. Her best friend asked the obvious.

"What's wrong Tammy?"

"We're in trouble." She said quietly, then took a deep breath and began to explain.

......

And so, five minutes later.

Any sign that Draalshin were after them was non-existent as far as the visiting party could tell, not that that stopped Riiki and T'ska from standing guard after they'd returned to retrieve their wagon. Tamina had told of her stomach churning encounter with the village chief, not leaving out the smallest detail for fear she might have missed some important thing that could turn the mess in their favour.

Alleece, for her part, had listened with growing anger. That anger turning into a sharp hiss as the other kobold to the parts about 'fertiliser' and 'another mate'.

"That monster! We should've known he wouldn't leave us alone indefinitely!"

"If we don't take care of the chittoricks we're as good as slaves." Oolan gasped.

Tamina nodded in weary resignation. She'd considered all the possibilities of Braccus' cruel order on her trip back to the ground; either they'd succeed, and they had to hope he'd keep his word about stopping the tributes for a year, they failed, and the Nallaki' tribes freedom was forfeit and Tamina would be subjected to horrors she didn't dare contemplate, or they died, and the Nallaki tribe would be enslaved anyway.

"We could run." She heard a voice say, then realised it was hers.

[Graybeard]

Rip took most of this in without reacting. One of the things a field anthropologist or sociologist had to cultivate was a capacity for neutrality, even when the thing he was observing was distasteful. Of course, he wasn't just a field anthropologist here; his ass was on the line too. With that latter point in mind, he abandoned neutrality for the moment.

"From what you've said about the craziness up north," he put in, "dealing with these 'Chittorick' shouldn't be any harder than the other things you've done, and you have more of the Killikah to help now. What's a 'Chittorick" like?"

[OOC: Still in the stage where I can't do much but set up exposition, so let's set it up ...]

[Jack Rothwell]

Tamina shook her head at Rip's question, not in a refusal to answer but rather in the face of what lay before them.

"They're giant insects, 'bout six, eight feet long. Kind of like a centipede/earwig thing. They got big mandibles on the front, thick carapaces, big black eyes..."

"Antenna as well." Alleece added. "That's their weakness. They're hive animals like ants. If you cut them off they frenzy and attack anything nearby."

"They killed my parents when I was gah." Tamina said, sounding distant as she looked into the long ago. "Well, Aleron did, but he used them to do it." She managed a weak smile at Rip, showing her appreciation at his attempt to cheer her up. "The Ralkin are all dead but these things'll be in their HOME."

"Tunnels and caverns, and more tunnels and caverns." Alleece supplied.

"It'll be dark and they'll be a tonne of them."

"Well at least they won't have the numbers of an ant swarm. A chittorick hive tops out at scores, maybe a hundred if the Matriarch is old enough."

The mention of the creature sent a collective shudder through the kobold group. Alleece, however, remained determined.

"That's the key to beating them. We have to find the Matriarch. If not kill it, then at least cut off her antenna and sever her connection with the entire hive. If we don't she'll just birth more and Braccus'll have all the reason he needs to end our independence." She turned and clasped Tamina's hands, forcing the older kobold to look at her. "We can't run from this Tammy. The Nallaki tribe has too many gah and elders to go trumping through the jungle to find a new place to live, and how long before we got tracked down? Even if we tried to leave right now with the wagon we'd be seen and dragged back here before the end of the day. Be strong."

Tamina nodded mutely. There really wasn't a choice. She turned to Shorty and Rip.

"It''s not fair to ask... I know this is our problem to deal with but... could you help us?"

OOC I'll get them on the road on my next post unless Rip and Shorty have any side stuff they want to do before they leave? Feel free to add npc's or other areas in the village or outside of it if you want. Don't want you feeling like a passenger instead of a collaborator.

Visual aid for chittoricks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G1ImL6jzt8 /OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, you asked for it, you got it ... ]

Unexpectedly, Rip and Shorty both started laughing, hard, real belly-busting gales of mirth, at this description.

"I'm sorry," Rip finally said when he came up for air, wiping tears from his eyes. "I know it's a real problem, and we'll be glad to help. It's just that ..." He dissolved in laughter again.

Shorty had managed to pull himself together to finish Rip's description. "Part of our jobs on the airship was vermin control. You wouldn't BELIEVE the size of some of the things we got on the airship before the Bonny Read. There was this one cockroach ..." It was his turn to collapse in laughter, as Rip came up for air again.

"Hang on a sec, I think I've still got this in here somewhere," Rip said, and he opened his Pocket Dimension. From this he withdrew what could only be called a scrapbook, if clearly a magical one. Mumbling to himself while Shorty continued to convulse in hilarity, he opened the scrapbook and paged through it until he got to the page he was looking for. "Here, look at this," he said, handing the book to one of the kobolds, he couldn't see clearly enough to be sure which one, and resumed peals of laughter.

The scrapbook page showed a fairly normal-looking countryside, probably in Farrel; normal in all regards except one. (Or two, depending on how one counted.) That one was a cockroach so big that it dominated the view, so big that it looked like it had been thaumatically airbrushed in ...

... And sitting on its back, riding bareback with feet at its sides and absolute glee on his face, was none other than Shorty himself.