Tsuiraku-town

[Kincaide]

Rhett was finally enjoying himself, "We were all something before we heard the glorious call of the Dwarves. I was a courier in fact and wholly honorable in my dealings. As I understand it, Brother, you were employed at the Tsuirakan Consulate. As it falls, I have need to converse with a certain... rather secretive... individual within said Consulate," He stepped closer to the Altar of Dell, just enough to cause the face of the device to flicker to life and the sound to barely return.

Ritter made a show of studying the characters as if they actually meant something to the Captain. Both men noticed now that they were not a surprised by the effect that they tasted a hint of iron, as if they had a split lip, and the hairs of their arms and necks were standing on end, "Indeed, this is a matter of great importance, I'm sure you'll understand our haste and discretion in this matter," he commented.

[Graybeard]

Brother Cosimo's face remained impassive, if hostile. "He will not speak to you," he growled. "Speak instead to me."

-------

Layla thought about the "terms." The elf seemed to be seeking her permission to simply mug anyone who crossed the vineyard, including those who'd died here -- and those who killed them. That didn't sound so good. Unless she could find a way to keep the body count down, that could draw attention to the enterprise that she definitely did not want. On the other hand, was there an alternative? Someone with that much magical power could just go out and mug whoever he wanted to anyway. Besides, having a little non-Gewehr muscle could be useful ... particularly if that muscle scared the crap out of people just by being what he was. "Very well, I agree," she said. "Now let's take you into town so you can see where the other death magic was used."

[Kincaide]

Rhett strode up to Cosimo, the Altar of Dell quieted back down. The silence that followed was thick enough to cut with a knife. He stepped up just close enough to Cosimo that it would be a little uncomfortable. Gone was the verbose humor and bumbling unbeliever, what remained put Cosimo to shame in its cold and calculating nature. Rhett waited some time before actually speaking and when he did, he kept his voice low to keep what he said to Cosimo private.

"Alright, I'll speak to you, because I figure you're reasonably smart and you'll relay everything to your boss. Your boss knows something about the folk trying to put my head on a pike for whatever reason. If your boss knows anything about me, he knows about what happens to people that try to kill me. If I can't run then I fight, and right now I can't run. My only lead takes me back to Tsuiraku, I'll head to Tsuiraku and I'll start asking questions, questions with collateral damage," he backed up some.

"Now, I think your boss will want to meet with me, tell him to come to the park. He knows which one."

[Graybeard]

Brother Cosimo's expression didn't warm up -- to put it mildly.

"I will tell him," he said, in a voice as flat as the front of the dwarven artifact. "Now excuse me." He turned and stepped through the door without another word.

[Kincaide]

Rhett watched the man leave, "I believe that man plans you all kinds of ill," Ritter commented idly.

"Yeah, yeah, which is why I need you to head back to the boat and get a few things and gimme that flare gun," Rhett replied. Ritter complied and Rhett passed Gram and the long package over his shoulder to the other man, "Sister, thank you for your assistance, with luck you'll never see me again," the two men left the temple, much to Rhett's relief, and set off in two directions after a moment's conversation.

Rhett headed back toward the park he and the dinghy took off a few minutes later heading in another direction. Rhett found the clearing were they had landed earlier and sat down with his back against the tree. He took out the flare gun and set it on the ground beside him. His current opponent was a sharp man, he would likely take Rhett's threat seriously and would not be in a negotiating mood.

[Graybeard]

It might have occurred to Rhett, as he made his way back to the park, that the Temple of the Divine Dwarf was a great deal larger on the outside than what he'd seen on the inside.

In fact, the structure took up much of a city block -- not that the blocks in Tsuiraku-town were particularly large (it was built to the same model as Tsuirakushiti, after all), but still. While its front had all the paraphernalia one might expect of a temple of that ... exotic religion, it merged smoothly into the kind of nondescript building that you could find anywhere in Tsuiraku-town, more like a tenement or even a warehouse than a temple. And that anonymous back of the temple faced onto the park.

As the two men arrived at the park via their separate paths, there was a nearly invisible pulse of magic along the wall of the temple facing it, and a door sprang momentarily into being where there had been no door before. A man stepped through for just a moment, wearing an outfit that was neither the ridiculous pseudo-dwarven getup nor the uniform of the Tsuirakuan Department of Homeland Security. He muttered something under his breath, and his eyes got the magical glow of a sensory-enhancement spell. He turned his gaze on Rhett, nodded, and retreated back through the door. Another inconspicuous flare of magic, and the wall was as it had been before, bland and featureless.

----------

"Let me run you into town so that you can get started on looking for the purveyor of the death magic," Layla told Neverinal. "Suddenly we're as interested in this subject as you are..." They boarded the hack, with Joe coming along for company. [OOC: Are Jamie and/or Maya coming too?]

[Kincaide]

Rhett sat alone for a long time. The sun began to dip down below the buildings around the park, putting the park into a premature twilight. Spheres of light, suspended on poles soon flickered to life of their own accord. The temperature cooled enough that Rhett was glad he always wore the old rag of his overcoat. It had been a long day and he was quite tired, this was one of the times he wished things would just slow to a stop and he could enjoy where ever he was. It was a nice park, it was well taken care of without being pretentious.

Soon enough, under the ministrations of the cool, sweet breeze and evening birdsong, Rhett's eyelids began to droop sleepily. It would be so easy to drift off and forget everything. Of course, if he did that he would probably wake up tied to a chair with a bunch of angry Consulate big wigs glaring at him. His magical interrogation training was more than a little rusty so he had to force himself awake.

[Sareth]

"Heading back into town?" Jamie poked her head in the door. "Will there be beer?"

"I'm still holding onto your backpack!" Jasmine shouted from another part of the house.

"Damnit..." Jamie muttered. "Let's go."

[Graybeard]

The cooling temperature of the evening was providing an excuse for some cuddling, as a paddleboat sized just right for an amorous couple floated gently down the stream through the park. The young man and woman in its seat were altogether too preoccupied with -- other things to notice Rhett enjoying the night air. The boat, which had been artfully shaped into a representation of a duck or swan or some other kind of waterfowl, passed by, heading for wherever it was going.

It was getting dark as the next boat bearing a couple approached a few minutes later. This one was also a mini-art form of its own, in the somewhat comical shape of a frog instead of a bird. The couple in the seat weren't quite as en deshabille as the pair in the previous boat, but the idea was very much the same ... until the frog-boat drew near to Rhett.

Magic glowed around the boat's outline, and with a soft thoop, a remarkably lifelike tongue flicked out from the frog's grinning mouth. In contrast to its real-life equivalent, however, it didn't stab at a large bug (not that there were any in the park within two orders of magnitude of the size that would feed such a frog) ... but rather at a six-foot-five-inch Courier.

With its newly captured burden, the tongue quickly rolled back up as the frog's mouth opened, revealing a space at the front of the boat just about the right size for storing a captive for a short while in rather tight -- secure -- quarters. Rhett was deposited therein, and the tongue disappeared and the mouth clamped shut.

The male member of the pair enjoying themselves in the boat's seat disengaged from his inamorata for a moment, addressed the frog, or more accurately, its contents. "Just relax in there. You're finally going to get to talk to that guy you've been wanting to see ... and he's pissed. But just relax, he won't eat you." The couple went back to what they were doing as the frog-boat drifted serenely downstream.

[Kincaide]

All the man got in reply were Rhett's muffled curses. It was hard to make out just what the Northerner was saying but it was definitely not pleasant. The compartment was terribly cramped for Rhett's wide shoulders. He tried to roll to a more comfortable position and rapidly found out that no placement of his limbs did not leave one part of him complaining. The thing was probably built to capture Tsuirakans and Farreleans.

He felt around in the cramped darkness until his hand came to rest on the barrel of the flare gun. He had barely managed to grab it as he was pulled into the frog's gullet. As long as this meeting was not taking place underground, the flare gun would probably save his skin. He was going against a magical super-agent and his gang of cold-blooded mages practically unarmed. He needed every advantage he could put his hands on.

Rhett grumbled another muffled curse at his captors and made himself as small as he could inside the compartment.