Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Come out with your hands up!"

Martin looked up at the business ends of a pair of military grade yukki staffs with surprise written across his face. This definately wasn't part of the plan.

'Oh... fiddlesticks.'

Slowly, very slowly, he got to his feet and raised his hands past his head with the palms spread wide. He tried to make his expression as un-threatening as humanly possible.

"Is there a problem officer?" [OOC I had to say it./OOC]

"I said, come out the room!"

The alleged Mr Dashwood made his way out of the changing facility, a hand seized him not-too-gently and dragged him the rest of the way. Martin made an effort to keep his hands up, if one of those weapons went off at point blank range they wouldn't need to bury him, just put a fresh coat of paint on the wall he'd been standing in front of.

"If this is about opening the wrong set of curtains, that was an honest mistake." He made his tone light, leaning a touch harder on his well-to-do way of speaking. "After all, a crowded bathroom presents many an accidental eyeful to be had, does it not?"

They weren't in the mood for light conversation evidently. Martin found himself being frogmarched towards the exit a moment later. He cast an eye behind and briefly considered bailing out the first floor window. Probably not a good idea, besides the issue of broken glass and the uncertain landing there where the guards outside to consider, and they might not be in a 'threaten first, shoot later' kind of disposition.

'Well... it's not like this'll be the first time I'll be wearing handcuffs.'

They made their way to the front door.
Last edited by Jack Rothwell on September 24th, 2010, 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Graybeard »

A frumpy Tsuirakuan-looking woman was standing by the commander of the Homeland Security force as the cops extracted Martin from the bath house. "That's him, officer!" she shrilled -- in Tsuirakuan. "I seen him ridin' away from that fire like a bat outta hell. I'd know that face anywhere!"

The head cop glared at Martin, then at the woman. Bystander identifications were notoriously unreliable, even apart from the intrigues that infested Tsuiraku-town (and Tsuiraku) like rats. The problem was, nobody from the liquor store was still there, except for the second original hood, and he wasn't going to be answering any questions any more. The employees might have got a make on the perp that would be more reliable than this woman's, but they weren't available for questioning. He'd have to look into that later, but some decisions needed to be made here and now.

"Take him in for questioning," he growled at the more intelligent-looking of the cops. "The rest of you, check everybody else in this damn place for ID, get statements, find out where we can talk to 'em later. Something don't feel right here."

If the commander had seen the smirk on the woman's face as she watched Martin being led away, he'd have felt that "something don't feel right here" comment even more strongly than he did. However, he hadn't.

------------

Remarkably, the Divine Dwarf medic had done quite a competent job splinting Stevo's leg, with something she called an advanced piece of dwarven medical technology. It did look ... advanced, to be sure, with a straight shaft of some corrosion-resistant metal connected to a broader, angled, beveled piece at one end that slid neatly under his foot as though made for it. Between the splint, the treatment of his burns, and a more conventional pain-killing potion that she'd given him, Stevo was feeling enough better to inquire about the runes on the outside of the beveled part.

"Good question," the nurse said. "We still have much to learn about the dwarven pantheon. However, an expert on the dwarven language and customs tells us that he thinks 'Mizuno' was a dwarven god of healing. Those runes give his name." Her voice became hushed for a moment. "And we can still benefit from his healing powers!" She turned to Gault. "Now it's your turn."

----------

It was almost comical, Layla reflected, how men's self-image was so tied up with their sex organs. As usual, the threat to -- modify them was enough to get the hood babbling out everything he knew.

However, that wasn't much. It was quite clear from the babbling that the deceased punk had been the brains of the outfit. (Curse my luck, Layla thought.) They'd got wind of the magic lab getting a shipment of contraband weapons from somewhere, but the survivor didn't know the details, even when -- encouraged via the slightest touch of Layla's knife to his, er, manhood. They'd mugged Kinabalu with the aid of another magical gadget they'd heisted earlier (the magical binding -- I should look into that), boosted the Yuuki staffs, then picked out the liquor store as their next target. That was all he knew.

Disgust crossed Layla's face as she sheathed the knife, hearing a baby's cry from inside the house, where Zachary had been left with Maya. "Do something with this guy," she instructed Ace and Joe. "I don't give a rat's ass what, and I don't want to know. I've got other things on my mind right now. Zachary needs feeding, and he means a helluva lot more to me than this asshole." She stood up and started for the house, unbuttoning her blouse as she went.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Hours »

Seishi:

The first few reports would state that there was the existence of another person running into the baths before their suspect. However the fact was that there was a psychotic horse in the middle of a busy street just before all this had happened so it wasn't unusual that people were getting out of the open, and more the point most of them were a little more concerned with watching the more attractive patrons than they were looking at the unkempt man who had run in before the admittedly more attractive foreign barbarian.

It was around the changing rooms that their apprehended suspect had been identified as peeking into that they got their largest shock as a half naked patron ran out with his clothes clutched to his chest shouting something that no one really wanted in a situation where people were less clothed and might have to go out into the street. The man was shouting about there being a bomb in the changing rooms. Even worse one of those people in the bath house who was busy taking a vacation from their true gender probably needed heavier protection and special circumstances to prevent the man from firing you if your sloppy evacuation methods brought shame upon them...

People, as they were wont to do, added more running about and screaming to their daily activities. It made sense, a lot of them had seen the man they'd arrested go into those change rooms even, and word was that he had burnt down some liquor store around the corner! People were running about, trying to get dressed or else cover their shame with illusions or other alteration magic as fast as they could manage, it was enough that the officers were forced to try and control the evacuation that they'd never called for in the first place.

On the inside however a few of the officers would find themselves confronting a device that seemed to be vaguely based on a very old pattern that would have been used in the mage/priest wars, however it was obviously a pretty shoddy imitation, probably garage built by some hack farellian hedge wizard, its enchantments seemed almost nothing like what a magical bomb was normally made with, which meant that it was likely unstable, rigged to be difficult to disarm, or maybe both.

Gault:

For all that was happening, Gault just say by and watched what was going on dispassionately, he did however manage to at least seem interested in what the dwarf lady was talking about, at least untill she turned on him and informed him that it was his turn to have some crazy gadget used on him... At least he knew that he could fix it himself a little later if needed.

'Alright, then...'

He raised his wounded leg up for the scrutiny of the nurse, the whole thing was pretty badly swollen and bruised, there was a good chance that it was at least fractured, but the most pressing concern was the large chunks of splintered wood that was sticking out of him at an odd angle, he'd be bleeding worse if he'd pulled anything out but at least now he'd ruined his sock and his boot would need cleaning out thanks to the sticky red stuff.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Martin had found himself bundled into the back of a sturdy and official-looking cart. He'd had to duck his head to narrowly avoid a collision with the beam that ran the length of the low roof and sit down heavily on the bench that lined its walls. Despite his predicament he felt a tiny spark of relief that he was no longer in the sights of the malicious bint who'd accused him of arsony, having someone slandering him in public was counterproductive to keeping a low profile. Not that there was much chance of that given the events of the last several minutes.

The officers had parked themselves opposite the still-grimy man with expressions no more pleasant than the ones they'd worn when they 'introduced' themselves. Martin made a play get a dialogue going.

"This really isn't necessary, you know."

"Shut your hole."

They'd confiscated his cane and pistol of course, not that they would've been much use against what appeared to be half a division of tooled-up officers on a potential warpath. It was probably just as well 'Mr Dashwood' was unarmed as the mountainous bastard in the too-small towel screamed past yelling about explosives in the bathhouse.

Martin gazed steadily at his captors, set apart from the renewed chaos erupting in the streets.

"Exit; stage right?" he suggested.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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"Ooh, we'd better do something about that," the Divine Dwarf nurse-medic fussed on seeing the wood sticking out of Gault. "We can wait for a minute with the leg, I don't think it's broken, but loss of blood from impalement can kill you dead very quickly. That comes first." She rummaged around in her hump-pack for a moment, but failing to find what she was looking for, excused herself and went through a door at the back of the emergency room. A minute or two later, she emerged bearing two weird-looking implements and two potion bottles.

The first bottle wasn't hard to understand. "Here, drink this," she said, handing it to Gault. "It'll help with pain. Down it all at once." As Gault looked at the bottle, the woman's aide got an implement ready: what looked like a giant pair of pliers. "First, we must take steps against bleeding," she said. That didn't take anything too elaborate, just a tourniquet. That applied, she turned back to her patient, who was still holding the bottle in his good hand. "Well? What are you waiting for? Drink it. The Medicine of the Dwarves will reduce your pain."

Maybe, but the "medicine of the dwarves" smelled an awful lot like plain old vodka.

----------

The Tsuirakuan cops were better than they looked; at least the ones manning the perimeter were. As the "customers" poured from the bath house, Yuuki staffs functioned on their "riot control" setting, producing a cloud of mist that was glowing with magic -- but it wasn't the expected tear gas.

The customers collapsed in giggling fits as the commanding officer nodded. "Once the laughing gas wears off," he observed to no one in particular, "there'll be some questions asked..."

----------

Like most large cities in Farrel, Rinkaiel did have its own police force and court system; it just wasn't very big, or very effective. However, the liquor store lay outside Tsuiraku-town, and the Tsuirakuan Homeland Security people had no direct interest in it. The two cops accordingly found a pair of their opposite numbers, such as they were, at the charred remains of the liquor store, and before they headed back for the bath house, handed Martin over to them for "questioning." One of the indigenous cops got a most menacing glint in his eye, and a broad smile on his face, when the prospect of an interrogation came up ... but the other one's reaction was rather different.

"Leo??"
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Hours »

Gault:

Gault grinned a little at the offer of the medicine, or at least he showed his teeth. There was something about the prospect of being in the presence of this strange company and a pretty crazy religious type that made him honestly not want to get drunk. Then again, his leg did kind of hurt. He downed the 'medicine of the dwarves' in one pull, letting it burn down to his stomach, giving him that fuzzy feeling deep down in the cockles of his heart. Maybe a little lower.

'You know. I have to hand it to you dwarf worshippers. You have style. A style at least.' Gault said, gritting his teeth as the nurse got to work pulling out splintering wood from his leg.

Seishi:

As the gas cloud dispersed, the unforunate appearance of the fat man was nowhere to be seen amongst the people who had fled the bath house. Instead there was a rather neat young man with distinct tanlines, had the illusion shattered outside the glowing gas cloud it probably would have been obvious that it was him, however Seishi was rather familiar with the riot control setting on a Yuuki Staff, and so knew what they were capable of in one way or another.

He'd managed to get near the edge of the perimeter before finally gulping in a lungful of gas, but lucky for him he'd planned ahead somewhat just in case something like this happened. After the illusion shattered he appeared somewhat different in than he did going in. The alteration spells he'd been casting weren't just for show, at least now he was cleanly shaven and his hair was cut shorter and had changed color. The sorts of spells that a vain highschool kid might learn in tsuiraku, also the kind of spells that were common enough in a bath house that they wouldn't have registered as noteworthy on the scans they were doing earlier.

Seishi slumped over to the perimeter, sniggering and trying really hard to not run out of breath, still trying to make a break for it.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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"Leo??"

For a moment the pony-tailed, dirt streaked man thought the game was up. 'Martin' looked up sharply at the mention of his real name, fully expecting it be accompanied by a ventilating bullet from the man's gun. He focused on the officer.

And relaxed.

"Officer Liepzeller!" He greeted him warmly. "Didn't expect to see you today."

"That makes two of us Mr Landau, mind explaining what the hell is going on?"

Leo starting making calculations about what exactly he should tell the Officer, mentally jumping in the air and clicking his heels. He'd had dealings with the Farrelian 'policeman' before. In fact, one of the first things his boss had sent him to do was put in a good word in with the local authorities. It hadn't taken much more than a golden handshake and a few convincing speeches to buy the loyalty of the crooked law enforcer.

'By the hells, the man was begging for an excuse to bitch about his job to someone in the first place. I probably could've bought the unit patrol patterns for a pint and a plate of chips. These wonderful corrupt cops!'

Of course, the other officer wasn't privvy to that piece of information. But the expression on his face had at least shifted from borderline homicidal to confused intrigue.

"You know this guy?"

Leo winced as the cop winked at him, if the man had strengths, it wasn't his sense of subtlety.

"Oh yes. Mr Landau here is a respected enterper... entrepe... umm... underpen..."

"Entrepreneur?" Leo supplied.

"Yeah, one of those. He's hardly the type to go around firebombing the local businesses."

This was going to be an expensive inquiry, he could tell.

"That still doesn't explain why he was running from here."

Leo saw an opportunity and jumped in.

"Well Officer, I was inside the building when it was attacked, you see. And after such an assault I had the pressing desire to get the fuck away from the place as quickly as possible."

The vulgarity did him favours, the other officer's face twitched in a tic of amusement. Leo indicated the edge of his shirt that had been caught in the heat. Liepzeller pushed forward, determined to earn his pay on this one.

"See? No arsonist is going to stand THAT close to his fire."

They might, but the statement was said convincingly. Liepzeller's companion was now looking distinctly unsure of himself.

"Well... maybe that does makes sense. But if you didn't do it, who did?"

Leo drew himself up and replayed the action of the last half an hour through in his head. Given the likelyhood that the arsonist was still on the loose despite the efforts of homeland security, these farrleian cops would probably be about as useful as a fart in the bath for his capture. Nevertheless he rattled off in as much detail as he could manage about the appearance of the man. The other cop (Leo learned his name was Randall) jotted down the information with a world-weary expression on his face. The disguise totting merc risked a question of his own.

"Does he sound like anyone you know?"

"No-one we're familiar with." Liepzeller got the reply in before Randall could tell him to mind his own business. "But we'll be following this up, won't we Officer Randall?"

"Oh yes." The bigger man replied in the almost-robotic tones of someone who had told a thousand other people the same thing. "No resource will be stinted to capture this dangerous man."

"Well if that's all, Officer..."

"Yes, yes, take your things, give your address to Liepzeller and bugger off."
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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About this time, Ace and Joe were pulling up in front of the burnt-out shell of the liquor store, having left Layla to tend her son (and put some distance between her and what was going to happen next) and done Luminosita alone knew what with the (late?) hood.

"Local cops," Joe muttered under his breath to Ace. "Not particularly competent, but as far as we can tell, surprisingly honest. We certainly haven't been able to get a line into them, and as far as we can tell, nobody else has either, except the Seeadler."

He dismounted and went to where Martin/Leo and Liepzeller were standing, and introduced himself as the manager of the store. "Who committed this outrage?"

The cop looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "We don't know, sir. Do you know where the employees are? We'd like to get a statement from them." He didn't add that it seemed convenient for them to be out of the picture when a fire like this happened.

Ace cleared his throat. "They were pretty badly burned. I was here when it happened and got a make on the bad guy. The people that work here are off at the Divine Dwarf clinic getting medical treatment."

The top cop rolled his eyes. "Of all the damned places... Liepzeller, you stay here and get a statement from this witness. We'd better have a talk with those guys." He set off for the clinic ... where Gault was now getting an unusual treatment following removal of the wood from his body. [OOC: Hours, please feel free to embellish this "unusual" treatment ...]
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Hours »

[OOC: Unfortunately I know too many nurses to think exactly what unusual treatment for an impaled leg would involve pliers and a tourniquet.]

Gault's head felt fuzzy by the time they were done with his leg, it wasn't just the medicine at that point so much as the fact that what they'd done had hurt. Just his luck to be given the treatment involving yanking jagged chunks of wood from his leg with a pair of pliers and sutureing the wounds with a strange device that looked a bit like a distorted pistol connected to a large cylinder of metal with a rubbery hose that gave a nasty hissing noise as it drove in little metal hooks to keep the wound knit shut. Still, he'd gotten cleaned up and it looked more or less as though whatever they'd jammed into him was about as good as most stitches he'd gotten in the past.

As the cops came in and started asking around, Gault swam his mind out of the vague haze the medicine had given him and managed to give a statement to the cops, essentially stating that he wasn't paying attention at the time of the arson attack since he'd just gotten around to recovering from when the bed had dropped on him due to the mishaps involved in the attempted stick up.

He managed to give a pretty good description of the arsonist, which managed to describe just about every tsuirakuan in this part of Rinkaiel in a manner best befitting a Farellian who couldn't quite tell foreigners apart. It may have been a bit troublesome for him to have admitted that one of the hoods had survived, however it would be just as troublesome when they found a skeleton with its skull cracked open and a yuuki staff in the wreckage which would all have to be accounted for, and in this case at least it was the truth that no one on this side of the conflict was at fault.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Leo had taken the opportunity to slink away retrieve his effects that had been carelessly dumped onto the road by the homeland security prior to their departure as Ace began his conversation with the none-too-bright law enforcers. He stuffed the pistol and cane back under his belt and cast a gaze around for the clothes he'd left outside the liquor store shortly after the madness had begun. Unfortunately, he found their charred remains under a cloud of ashes and planks of burnt wood far too close to the scene of the crime. He lifted the remainder of the hat's brim and made an irritated noise as the stump of the feather broke off and blew away in the breeze.

"Bloody thing was Deshain Design as well..."

He returned to the store owner after the departure of the more suspicious cop as their conversation drew to a close in a vengeful sort of mood. Liepzeller tipped him another wink and made a rubbing gesture with his thumb and forefinger as he did. Leo rolled his eyes theatrically.

"Later." He muttered, and nodded a greeting to Ace, half-wondering if there was any point staying in 'character' after what the older man had witnessed him do just before he'd chased the criminal into the bathouse. "Well sir, it seems you're out of pocket from this debacle. You have my sympathy."

No harm in being polite at least.
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