Rinkaiel: Temple of the Divine Dwarf

[Graybeard]

The girl's scrawny shoulders slumped, and a look of sheer misery crossed her face. "Oh. Th-thank you." She walked away from Rufus and Eve without another word.

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

"I don't understand why we're doing this," Galina commented as the group left the laboratory.

"Patience," Layla said. "I'll explain later." Using enough euphemisms that you may still not know what we have in mind, which will protect you from Kitaura, if I do it right.

A few minutes later, they reached the park across the street from the rear entrance to the Temple of the Divine Dwarf. If Jin-Liu is as good as I suspect he is, we can do it from here if we have to, Layla judged, but I'd rather not. The chances of discovery are too great ... wait, what's that?

A kindly Providence -- Layla didn't really believe in Luminosita -- had thoughtfully arranged for there to be a liquor store just a stone's throw from the temple. The perfect cover, she thought.

And even better, right next to it was another store that looked like it specialized in children's clothing and furniture. It was a weird juxtaposition, but Tsuiraku-town had a dynamic all its own ... and it was more cover. Now if the kid really is that good...

[OOC: Paging Jin-Liu! It may be hard to make much progress here without you. Incidentally, I'll be intermittent again this week.]

[Jack Rothwell]

Leo rejoined Rufus and Eve with a look of concern at the grim expression on his leader's face. The old man looked at the cops rapidly clearing the area and shook his head.

"I think we should take our business elsewhere." He said flatly.

The trio headed back to Barker Lane.

.......

Meanwhile, Jade Ermingard had long grown impatient waiting for her unreliable man to bring back the golem remains she'd requested hours ago and rode her way to the vineyard herself. The blacksmith muttered an intermittent stream of curses at the unreliability of mercenaries and her own foolishness for working with them as she stomped up the path to Layla's home and knocked as politely as she could manage on the door.

[Porcelain Fish]

"We'll need a few supplies. Timber support beams for one," Jin-Liu was saying as he followed Joe up from the cellar. "Saiho can handle the heavy work, but the ventilation shafts are going to require something a little more specialized." His head turned at the sound of a knock, and he glanced at Joe.

[Graybeard]

"We can find all that," Joe answered Jin-Liu. "There's stuff out in the shed. Hm -- wonder who that is?" He opened the door, to find a not-very-happy-looking Jade on the other side.

Uh, oh. "Can we help you?"

---------

"I don't understand," Galina said, as Layla continued to check out the stores near the Temple of the Divine Dwarf -- nothing as satisfactory as the liquor store, but that would do just fine.

"I know," Layla smiled, patting her friend's cheek. "It's better that you don't. What you don't know, Kitaura can't squeeze out of you. Now why don't you give some lessons to those two beginners who are coming shortly? I have a couple of things to do, and I'll collect you before dinner time." She left Galina and Oxana to head back to the laboratory, and scooped up Zachary to head out for the vineyard. Yes, this frontage should work just fine ...

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade wiped the thunderous look off her face and tried to replace it with something more charming as Joe answered the door.

"Apologies. It's been a long one. Day, I mean." She smiled wanly. "I don't suppose Rufus or Leo swung by to ask about the remains of that blue golem in the basement? I was hoping to get my hands on it. Call it a project for mutual gain."

[Graybeard]

Joe thought about it. "Rufus -- older fellow with a limp, right? He was here, but when that explosion happened, he took off like he was shot out of a gun. He didn't stay long enough to ask about the golem parts." He stopped, trying to judge Jin-Liu's reaction to the golem talk.

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

"So what now?" Ace said, as soon as he and Layla were back together.

"We go back to the vineyard," Layla answered, "and see if this kid is as good as he seems to be. We eat, drink, be merry. Then, late tonight, we pay a little visit to that liquor store..."

[Jack Rothwell]

"Ahhh dang, blast and tarnation, I should've bloody known." Jade replied, somewhat wearily. "Could I get the remains now? I might be able to put something together to blow your socks off if I can get some other materials to match it." A thought occured to the blacksmith. "By the way, did Layla ever tell you about the mana rifle?"

OOC I know Jade made two, did Layla's group get one of them? I can't remember./OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC:

OOC I know Jade made two, did Layla's group get one of them? I can't remember./OOC

Not as far as I can see, although I seem to have lost track of one of them myself. Let's proceed as though the answer is no. /OOC:]

Joe hadn't yet answered when the selfsame Layla (and Zachary and Ace) came through the door. "No," she said. "If you've still got it, though, it may come in handy shortly. Mom?" she called back into the house. "I've found a possible outlet for Bad Ass Wines. Let's get ready for a sales call."

If the other Gewehr people were puzzled at this apparent non-sequitur, no one showed it.

[OOC: I feel as if things are dragging a little here. Obviously, what Layla intends is that Jin-Liu, once he has demonstrated his bona fides with the wine cellar, be co-opted to dig a tunnel from the back of that liquor store under the Temple of the Divine Dwarf, with fun and merriment to follow. Shall we fast-forward over the preliminaries and just get down to that? Presumably it would happen during the wee small hours of the following night, or the one after that ... and then the real fun can start. Opinions, JR and PF?]

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I'm for it. I've been time killing for a few pages now./OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, so fast forward it will be. I'll open a new thread, since we're at our normal length for this one. Just to get it all teed up, with the real action to start the next day:]

A few hours later:

Now we're getting somewhere, a rather smug and self-satisfied Layla thought as she headed for the Silver Hands' hideout.

As twilight fell, she'd taken the opportunity to case the liquor store, and the setup was nearly perfect. Its security features were rudimentary, nothing that should take a Wraith more than five minutes to defeat, and nothing magical that she could detect. They could be tunneling toward the Temple of the Divine Dwarf in not much more than that, based on what she'd seen of Jin-Liu's handiwork at the vineyard. (Of course, a certain ... delicacy ... would be required in enlisting him for the project. Delicacy, or duplicity. Whatever worked.) Even better, by light of day, the proprietor had expressed interest in carrying Bad Ass Wines products. That would give them some cover if they needed it.

There were some other nice little features. Galina had had two more novice students-to-be show up at her door, and she'd be tied up the next day dealing with them. That was good; Layla wanted her friend well out of harm's way while this caper unfolded. Also nice was that the inept Rinkaiel cops were closing ranks to cover up whatever had happened at the brothel. She'd got word that a certain Very Important Person in the city government, such as it was, had been inconveniently present when the place blew up, a person whose presence in a place like that might have been embarrassing, and his death there even more so. As a result, nobody was worrying too much about other dead riffraff there (like, say, Stevo), and the investigation of how the blast happened promised to be, one might say, superficial.

There remained just two things to do. One was to co-opt (might as well call it what it was) Jin-Liu for the digging task. The other was to make the courtesy call she was now making. She knocked at the door of the Silver Hands place and smiled a greeting as it was opened.

"Just thought you might want to know," she said, "that tomorrow night, we have an opportunity to go on the offensive against the bastards at the back of the Temple that tried to kill Eve." She nodded at the woman. "May I assume you're interested? Bring the mana rifles ..."