Temple of the Divine Dwarf, part 2

[Graybeard]

[OOC:

OOC I vote we sacrifice a child to the Great God Imhotep! Umm...and by that I mean I could get the Silver Hands asking after the golems so Jade can put those blue golem remains to some work. Maybe?/OOC

Careful about that "sacrifice a child" line, Layla and Galina are both sensitive about such things. Anyway, sounds good. Of course, first we have to rescue Jade from the fix she's gotten herself into, so ...]

The bar-hopping hadn't gone well. Part of the problem, Ace realized, was Oskar. Someone that big and rough-looking didn't exactly inspire people to get close to him when he walked into a bar, quite the contrary. All that had happened was that the big man had consumed enough beer, between the four or five bars they'd visited, to intoxicate an army. Of course, it hadn't affected him a bit, at least as far as sobriety was concerned. In other ways, however ...

Well, they could try one more before lunch, anyway. "The Mead and Drum," Ace read the sign over the door. "Seems like I've heard of that place before."

"Whatever," Oskar growled, a sound that would have put a substantial cave bear to flight. "Let's get it over with. I gotta take a pee." They walked inside ...

"You owe me an eye, bitch."

Ace stopped, gaped. "Jade!" Unfortunately, that was about all he could do, being neither proficient with a firearm, nor armed to begin with.

Oskar, however, suffered from neither of these impediments. With speed quite astonishing for a man his size -- he was up for promotion to full Wraith, after all -- he drew a well-concealed revolver from his belt and fired.

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC Basically the situation with cyclops is just a way of killing time and tying up a loose end. Jade hasn't had much action lately so... OOC

The funny thing, Jade reflected, was that despite the violent reputation of The Mead and Drum most of the patrons remained unconscious or were simply several seconds slow to reacting to the Gewehr Wraith's sudden draw and the loud gunshot which followed. One of those, unfortunately for the blacksmith, was not the grudge bearing pirate. The man had presense of mind enough to hit the deck and take cover behind a table at the sight of Oskar's draw. Although, Jade noted, from the way his ear was bleeding if he'd been a fraction of a second slower then Dandelo would've had worse things than spilled beer to clean off his bar. She turned to her would-be rescuers and shot out a hand.

"Wait!" The word was slurred, but she managed to get it out. She pushed groggily back to her feet and rubbed her swelling cheek; the bruising already beginning to show. She managed, with some concentration and a lot of angry pride, to get the next sentence out.

"I appreciate the help, but this is between me and cyclops. The day I need two friends to take out one short-arse without 3d vision is the day you can put me to bed with a shovel."

The man brought his head from behind his improvised shelter snarling at the blacksmith, who stepped into a wider stance and brought her clenched fists up.

"You want my eye, fuckhead? Come and take it!"

The man broke cover at a charge, aiming low with a tackle which the merc sidestepped just enough to catch his arm with both of her own, she twisted it in what would've been a dislocating action if the pirate hadn't had the self-preservation to clasp his own arm and prevent her from turning it. Jade gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the silver flecks dancing in her vision. She stepped in, clamped a hand against his neck and threw her weight to the side, lifting the man over her protruding hip and depositing him in a crumpled heap on the floor. Jade wasted no time, rushing in to pin his shoulders against the floor and leave his face exposed for some serious working over.

At least that was plan.

Unfortunately Jade was a touch too slow getting to the one-eyed bandit, but just quick enough to meet the swing of the stool the man had procured from his prone position. The wooden construction collided against the injured side of the blacksmith's face and sent her crashing into a table. She hit the ground gasping, trying to stop the blackness she was swimming in from taking her consciousness. She drew a ragged breath and drew into a ball.

"Look at me bitch."

Jade did. Seeing the glint of a blade hovering above her. She drew her lips back into a crooked smile that had nothing to do with humour and clamped a hand against her ankle as though she'd sprained it. She heard her voice as though from a long distance away.

"Well... what're... you waiting for?"

He stepped forward, exactly as she hoped he would. It was a dangerous ploy but she'd been in enough bar-room and alley fights to know that playing nice rarely got you out of an ugly situation with your insides still inside. She unrolled from her foetal position and snapped out a hand that made a dull thud as it connected with her assailant's foot.

The man stopped.

He looked down.

He screamed.

It had been an awkward shot but Jade had managed it. The knife in her boot was now enjoying its new home, sticking up from the centre of the unfortunate man's extremity. Blood running from it in a manner reminiscent of a slow lava flow from an active volcano. Jade grinned with considerably more humour and levered herself to her feet using the bar as prop, feeling warmth spreading on the nearly-numb side of her face that probably wasn't lukewarm alcohol.

"Kkeeep iit." She managed, her words even more askew as the effects of the stool shot really began to sink in. She staggered uncertainly over to Ace and Oskar, nearly falling into Layla's man arm's as her legs tried to escape from under her.

"Th-thanks. How 'bout you..." She blinked. "...gentlemen take me sssomewhere...a little... a little sssafer?"

[Graybeard]

"Let's get you home," a shaken Ace said, the rumor-mongering mission forgotten for the moment. They left the bar.

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

"I -- was hoping to learn more about your magic," Faye told the young priest.

This earned her a stare with distinct elements of hostility in it. "Ma'am, the Sacred Dwarves had nothing to do with magic. Their wondrous artifacts are all derived from science. The powers of magic pale against such things."

Why did I say that? Faye wondered, as she smiled apologetically to seek forgiveness for her error ... but the acolyte wasn't buying it.

[Jack Rothwell]

Jade weakly slung hers arm around the shoulders of her companions and slumped between them, her head rolled limply in a way that suggested it was too much effort to hold it upright.

"Don't... let me... pass...out." She managed.

[Graybeard]

"Don't... let me... pass...out."

Unexpectedly, Oskar gently supported Jade's head. "It might be easier if you did," he rumbled, but they walked away as chaos erupted in the bar.

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I don't think Jade has got much to say til she's sitting down with a healer and a shot of something strong, and the rest of the hands are trucking along rumour spreading atm. Any word from Jui-lin yet?/OOC

[Porcelain Fish]

Jin-Liu sneezed, the sound echoing along the corridor of the wine cellar he was putting the finishing touches on for Layla at the vineyard. He thumbed his nose absently, and went back to supervising Saiho. As long as the others had been gone, he had to wonder if they were stirring up a veritable army with this "magical weapon" business.

Speaking of which, he couldn't help but think Jade's precision problem could be fairly easily solved by the addition of an oscillator. If nothing else, putting one together would give him something to do.

[OOC: Jin-Liu doesn't really know his way around town, so there's not a whole lot for him to do unless there's some action coming up. Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye on the thread./OOC]

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, go ahead and dig. Some of the action will be returning to the vineyard as soon as Jade is repaired, or possibly sooner. So:]

"Let's get you to a healer," Ace said, noting the seriousness of Jade's injuries.

"Problem, boss," Oskar pointed out. "There's only one healer here we know about."

Ace facepalmed. "Oh, yes, that bunch associated with the Temple of the Divine Dwarf." He looked at Jade. "We could go there if you want ..."

The look on her face ...

"... Didn't think so."

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

Faye hadn't been at the selfsame temple for very long when she realized that she and Layla had made a possibly serious error.

She was doing a bit of back and fill, expressing wonderment at the Sacred Artifacts to try to cover for her remark about magic, when the main door opened, and a man wearing the outlandish getup of a temple priest came in, not a full priest but most likely what passed for a temple novice or initiate. It only took her a moment to recognize the man as someone she'd seen at the consulate. Obviously Kitaura had the place staked out too, with an undercover man in the temple staff. We're amateurs at this, Faye realized. Kitaura ... he's a pro. If he figures out that we're trying to do the same thing he is, there might be ... consequences.

She busied herself with one of the Sacred Artifacts, doing her best to keep her face hidden from the "novice."

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC "JR! Can I hell...umm...heel Jade?"

"No Tamina, you're in a different thread and I disaprove of teleportation for convience purposes... or of creations speaking to their creators."

"Sor-ry."

"It's ok. This is out of character."/OOC


"Well that's jus' great." Jade slurred, then winced as her face began to regain an iota of feeling.

She was having a hard time thinking straight but she could, at least, remember what had happened. Her scrambled mind presented her with a memory of a fourteen year old Jade falling backwards off a horse and hitting the ground hard enough to get a concussion. The young woman had been bed-ridden for days with a head full of sharp edges afterwards. That had been worse, not by much, but it had been worse.

She forced her legs to keep going forward, feeling a dim sense of gratitude for the presense of Ace and Oskar. If they hadn't come along... her mouth twisted in a faint smirk despite the agony lancing through her head.

"This... this... reminds me of how we first...first met." She looked at Ace out the corner of her eye. "'sept it was a... a gunshot wound. Remember? You got that...girl to help me. What... was her name?"

[Graybeard]

[OOC: That was great...]

"Maya," Ace answered. "I don't know where she's gotten to. We'll have to look for something else."

The two men, hauling Jade along, made for Tsuiraku-town; Oskar remembered seeing a clinic of some kind there. Soon the three were standing outside what billed itself as the "Rinkaiel Institute of Thaumato-Holistic Medicine." The sign said it included an urgent-care capability. That looked like it should fit the bill just fine.

However, they didn't notice the fine print under that part of the sign:
K. Oshima, D. Thm., resident healer