Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Graybeard »

"Can't blame a man for hoping. Shall we go?"

"Let's," Layla said, bafflement on her features at what this strange little man had said. "No, I'm not nearly in the arch-mage class, and never will be. I wouldn't want to take him on in a fair fight." Not that the Gewehr fights fair, of course, but still. "But why is he a concern at all? He's heading out of town with his flunky. On the other hand, Jasmine might have an interesting trip south ..."

They were a few blocks from their first stop when Layla noticed a familiar form walking along the road: Galina, carrying her daughter. That was interesting, and in several ways, reassuring. The streets here seemed to be safe for a young woman to walk about, unaccompanied. Of course, Layla was Wraith-nasty in a fight and didn't particularly worry, but Galina didn't have years in the Gewehr as part of her skill set that Layla knew of. Magical skills, though ... could she augment the group enough to do whatever Leo had in mind? Motioning him to hide the "mana rifle" [OOC: Were they carrying it? They wouldn't have been able to take it into the terminal, but it could have been left outside with the horses and cart. If they weren't carrying it, this can be retconned out. /OOC:], she hailed her friend and called her into the hansom. "Here, let us give you a ride."

"Thanks," Galina answered, somewhat breathlessly. "Did you hear the news?" she asked as she took a seat.

"No, we're pretty far off the grapevine out at the vineyard, so to speak," Layla answered, as those around her winced at the pun; it was quite inadvertent, actually. [OOC: That's true, in fact. I didn't realize she was punning until I'd already started to write. Sorry, everybody. :roll: /OOC:] "What news is that?"

"There was a big fire at the Temple of the Divine Dwarf overnight," Galina said. "No word on damage yet, but they think it had a magical origin."

Which would explain both why that archmage needed to fly out of town, and why he looked so pissed off, Layla thought, but she made noncommittal, surprised noises as they turned onto Anilis Street.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Jack Rothwell »

OOC Jade had a case for the rifle due to the concealment issues her and Leo discussed earlier. Should've mentioned it, my bad. We can assume she either left it or kept it looking inconspicuous or some way if that works better./OOC

Jade listened to the exchange with growing concern. As far as she knew the temple was pretty well protected. A big fire at the huge building had the whiff of a serious accident or an inside job, given the recent events around town, the Blacksmith was more inclined to think the latter.

The pair split off from the main group with a wave goodbye, Jade pulled a set of keys from her pocket and unlocked the door to the blacksmith's Leo had temporarily put in her posession. She unlimbered the case which contained her current pride and joy and retrieved the mana-rifle, giving it a quick look over before placing it on a sturdy workbench in the centre of the forge. She reached back into the case and pulled out a wad of paper with hastily scribbled notes spider-webbed across them. Leo looked over her shoulder and squinted.

"You have the worst handwriting of anyone I have ever seen, ever."

"Well excuse me for not having a rich father who put me through university." The content was aggrivated but her tone was not. In truth, despite the outward annoyance she sometimes showed, Jade had gotten used to the merc's jokes and digs over the years, she might've shot him by now if she hadn't. She thrust the paper into Leo's arms and pointed to a desk in the corner.

"Why don't you take that fine education of yours and write those up so people can understand them?"

"What for?"

"For Rufus, for a start. Gods know the old bastard would be happy to have them. And if he's not they'll be others who would be." She pulled another rifle down from a rack and began the process of dismantling it. "And if nothing else, if the future leaves me pasted against a brick wall by a magical grenade it would be nice to know I'll be leaving something useful behind."

"A bit maudlin today, aren't we?" Leo sat down nevertheless and started copying the blacksmith's notes. Jade sighed and ran a hand through hair.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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"So what happened at the temple?" Layla asked Galina as they headed for the laboratory.

"I don't know," her friend said. "I think I heard it, though. It was some time around midnight. I was awake, feeding Oxana, and there was this kind of muffled boom from the direction of the park. I was sleepy, didn't think anything of it at the time, went back to bed. Then when I got up this morning, I heard there'd been a fire."

Layla was intrigued. "Want to go look at it?"

Galina nodded agreement, and a few minutes later, the women were arriving at a police line that surrounded the Temple of the Divine Dwarf. Strange, Layla thought. I don't see any real evidence of a fire here ... oh, wait.

She was half right: there wasn't any sign of damage at the front of the temple. However, her nose was detecting the odor of smoke coming from the rear of the building, where it faced the park. The women exchanged a glance, and Layla pulled the wagon away, circled the block ... and when she could see the building's rear, the picture was quite different. One corner of the building had simply ceased to exist. There was smoke and rubble, and that was all. Whatever had been in that corner had been completely incinerated, leaving practically no trace.

Just like the shack outside my property, Layla thought.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Jade had found her rhythm, it happened sooner or later when she was constructing a weapon. Her hammer clinked back and forth at a steady pace as she molded the extra parts for the casing of the new mana-rifle.

Ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching...

"Hi-ho, hi-ho, its off to work we go... with a bucket and spade and a hand grenade..."

"Shut up Leo."
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Layla was a pensive woman as she and Galina headed back to the laboratory.

"I have an idea about who did that," she said, "and it is nobody I want to tangle with. Come on, let's start the lessons."

She didn't tell her friend that she also had an idea why Kitaura had destroyed that corner of the Temple of the Divine Dwarf. Simply put, that was where the rebels' warp gate was. A tidy, surgical strike had removed the ability of that band of rebels to do whatever they were going to do, using Tsuiraku-town as a base of operations. Yes, there was still the group out there that Faye and the others had seen ... but one insurrection at a time, and that one was no concern of Layla's.

Maybe things will finally calm down around here, she thought as Galina brought out a large block of ice from somewhere in the back of the laboratory; for a transformation exercise, Galina had said. Well, that sounded harmless enough. It was time to get on with living.

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

"Please take your seats and fasten your seat belts," the announcement echoed through the cabin of the airship as it prepared to leave for Port Lorrel. "We expect some turbulence upon departure. The captain will inform you when it is safe to move about the cabin."

"Is this seat taken?" the Tsuirakuan arch-mage's lieutenant said, as he settled into the seat next to Jasmine.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Leo made his way across Tsuiraku Town, humming a tune to himself that Jade had told him to 'stop singing or I'll hit you with a hammer'. She'd be a while finishing the second rifle and was too focused on the task at hand for company, having gone to that place inside her head that was all angles, alloys and temperatures. It was strange and a little disconcerting, Leo reflected, how the forge had gotten into the women's head, creating something inside her that was as steel-like as the materials she worked with.

He had an errand to run anyway, it wasn't a long trip back to his 'safehouse' and he was expecting a message from the stern old man who'd sent him here; a letter most likely. Rufus was old-fashioned at heart after all.

The homeland security, he observed as he turned down a main street, was making its presense felt today. There were still inquiries being made about the liquor store attack and the fake 'bomb' in the bathhouse on the lips of the officers as he strolled by, doing his best to look inconspicuous. The lawman reminded him of his old 'buddy' Liepzeller, ( viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1572&start=70 ) a man of many flaws, but one who made it his business to keep his ear to the ground.

"Maybe it's time to pay him a visit." He said under his breath.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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"What am I supposed to do with that?" Layla wondered, as Galina brought a block of ice into the laboratory.

"Oh, not much you haven't done already, from what I hear," her friend said. "Remember the exercise you did when you were finding out that you had magical talent, with the beer stein? Much the same here, with two little differences. One, you don't have the concentrator to help you find the magic to work with. That'll make your job a little harder. Two, on the other hand, ice is a lot easier to manipulate magically than metal is. So just use your mind to shape it into something that interests you."

Galina stared off into space for a moment, then chuckled. "Funny story about this exercise. A few years back I was T.A.'ing at Sashi Mu, which is the big magic academy in Tsuirakushiti. We'd just got married, and my husband was finishing up his stint in the battlemages, so we needed a little extra pocket change until he got out. So I was working for Professor Rikdo in his 'Introduction to Transformation' class, and there was this little half-elf kid in the class, I forget her name, but she looked about eleven years old even though she was several years older than that. That's the way half elves are. So Rikdo calls her up to do the same thing I'm asking you to do, and she ends up blowing the block up! Pieces of ice flying everywhere, it was funny as hell. I didn't find out until much later that she already had mage-level skill at destructive magic ... If we'd known that, we'd never have let her near that ice. Anyway, you'll do much better, I'm sure of that."

-----------

"So what was a highly attractive woman like you doing in a backwater like Rinkaiel?" the junior mage (not that junior; he had to be at least thirty) asked Jasmine Porter, as the airship lifted off.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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Jade broke off her task to look over the notes the merc had written with a grunt of satisfaction. Leo had the copperplate-neat writing of the well-educated man she knew he was. She picked up the stack of papers, shuffled them, then put them back into the now empty rifle case she'd arrived with.

Work on the second mana-rifle was going considerably quicker than the first; which had been a process of applying semi-knowledge, making guesses and trial and error in its construction. This time, the Blacksmith had even managed to manipulate the remainder of the yukki staff's power source without adding another burned finger to her collection. As she resumed the 'rhythm' she found her thoughts turning to the other project she had lined up; the golem blade, but overshadowing even that melee masterpiece were ideas of what she could do with one of those blue golems if she could get her hands on one.

"Too bad I had to blow the one in the basement up..." She muttered through the hammer strokes.

...............................

Leo's trip home had turned out to be fruitless, the equivalent of the post (which was run by men with sacks of letters using warp-gates to travel from city to city) was running late today it seemed, either that or the Captain hadn't deemed to send him any new information. The merc supposed he could take it as a sign that Rufus had enough confidence in him to assume things were running smoothly. Leo had only an approximate idea of when the old coot was arriving (along with anyone and everyone else in his 'organisation' for that matter) but he knew it would be in the next day to two. It drew into stark light the need for some of those magical communication devices other groups tended to favour when members were travelling abroad. Well... Leo would've drag Rufus into the here and now if it came to that.

Leo stayed long enough to feed Keeko, then started his search for officer Liepzeller.
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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"That's very impressive," Galina said approvingly as she saw what Layla was doing with the ice. It had taken her a little while to get the hang of it, but now she was shaping the block into a clearly recognizable likeness of Zachary, all using nothing but her mind. "We may make a mage out of you yet," she joked. "Really, though, the ice isn't hard to work, that's why we use it. I'm more impressed that you have such a clear image in your mind. Do you have an artistic background?"

Layla paused, grateful for a chance to take a breather; easy to work or not, shaping the ice was physically taxing. "No, I really don't," she answered. "When I was younger I was more into the outdoors, and since then, I just haven't had the time. You know how it is with a baby." She didn't say that the real reason she didn't have time for art, or most anything else other than the vineyards and Zachary, was the Gewehr, and the vineyards were part of the outfit's cover, enjoyable enough but definitely not avocational.

Galina chuckled, nodded. "I do indeed. I used to do a little music on the side, singing torch songs in cheap bars, that kind of thing. All that stopped when Oxana was born. Well, she won't be small forever, and there'll be time to get back to the music. Now, if you focus down from your hands to your fingertips, you can begin the mental smoothing to get the fine detail in shape ..."

Layla smiled and did as she was told, but a realization was growing in her mind that was interfering with the construction of the frozen Zachary.

I don't want to be a Wraith any more.

[OOC: So isn't Jasmine going to react to the handsome mage that just plopped down next to her in the airship? ;) ]
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Re: Tsuiraku-town, part 3

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It took Leo longer to find Liepzeller than expected, the man was parked far away from his usual spots. Mr 'Dashwood' found his associate camped out in front of the travel agency on Broad Street (so named because it was the narrowest street in Rinakiel and the locals had a sense of humour as sophisticated as a brick). The man was snoring under a paper that fluttered like wings from his heavy breathing. Leo stifled a smile at the sight of him, glancing over the headline about the explosive events in town that had happened yesterday. Closer examination revealed a typical lack of detail about the events.

'Bloody fearmongers.' He stuck out a foot to nudge the officer into wakefulness and decided against it. instead he sat down beside the older man and nudged him gently. Liepzeller awoke by inches, murmuring under breath that fairly hummed of old tabacco and garlic. Leo's nose wrinkled in defense.

"Oh! Mr Dashwood! What brings you to this corner of town?"

Leo repressed the urge to retch before he replied. "Just the usual, Alan. Fishing for interesting gossip, what the militia are up to, etcetera, etcetera."

Alan Liepzeller grunted and stretched, his back playing playing a cacophony of cracks. Suddenly his eyes widened in recollection.

"I just remembered. There was a man who had a message for you."

"Really? Who?"

"He didn't say. He was an old guy, had an eyepatch. He said... ahh... 'Tell that peacock-looking ponce you do business with to get his skinny backside to the guild on Barker Lane and make his report'."

Leo actually laughed at the message, more from the meaning than the content. The old bastard was in town, that made his future plans crystal clear. He crossed Liepzellers palm with a couple of coins and said his goodbyes.

The day had just become a lot more interesting.
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