Getsemiel

[Sareth]

Lillith pondered this a moment, and then shrugged. "I guess that you'll just have to use 'Lillith'. I mean, it avoids the worst of it. If anyone asks, elder sister is accurate enough, as far as that goes, but it just sounds so awkward." The girl's cheeks colored a little. "I guess this is going to take a little getting used to, isn't it?"

Brad shifted beside her, trying not to intrude on the conversation. Well meaning as he was, Lillith noticed the slight movement anyway, and colored even further. "Oh! I should introduce you. Fayna, this is Brad." Lillith's fingers curled into his. "He's Sister Rose's brother. He's been courting me." She giggled as Brad began to color and stammer.

[Graybeard]

Brad's blush not only could be seen by Sister Rose, over where she was examining the fragment of the figurine (I can just guess what happened there, she thought, and her guess would have been exactly on target); it could probably have been seen from the surface of the moon if it had been up.

"I ... well ... yes ... I mean, I ... we ... she ..."

He stopped and looked at Jerecht, who was watching proceedings and trying not to get the dry heaves from laughing.

"How did you make this work so easy?" he asked the man plaintively.

[Drannin]

"Easy?!" exclaimed Jerecht, "Whoever said that it was EASY?" Fayna shot him a deadly glare in response, to which Jerecht just smiled sheepishly."

Fayna examined Brad critically. "I see... so..." she stopped herself mid-sentence. She had just met Lillith, now was not the time to start evaluating her boyfriends. "Well... congratulations." She paused, looking at Lillith again. "...I have a dress that would look nice on you." She offered, then winced at how awful that sounded. Weave, she was bad at this! Where the hells was Maduin, anyway?

Harker glanced at Argus. "She's scarily like you, Boss." Argus shot Harker a deadly glare. "SCARILY."

[Alberich]

Tim crinkled his brow at the figurine. "Well, that one was a weapon, a strange one - opened portals and fired ordinary arrows, but you could damage it by blowing stuff back through the portal. So maybe this one would open a portal and try to deafen you with loud drum beats? Just as fragile as the other one. Not surprising to find it broken." He paused a while, thinking. "But if it's here -- well, is it anywhere near where Blaise was going? Because if it just got dropped, well, that puts some kind of link between Blaise and Uncle Shemmy and Maduin's enemies."

He couldn't help suspecting she knew more about that, and just about everything else, than she let on, but he wasn't really feeling the resentment now. Blaise had escaped in his unholy magic ship, and that was simply depressing. If these statuettes made for any kind of link between Blaise and his organization and Maduin's enemies -- who were manifestly still in Veracia, indeed they were right here in Getsemiel -- some way to trace his friends or get at him, maybe that failure could be redeemed. That would count for a lot.

[Graybeard]

"I'd guess a signaling device," Sister Rose said, remembering a certain moment from the Albigenish Incident; the sound of drums could carry a long way, even if not magically enhanced, and skilled drummers could communicate in a code that would be hard to break. "Maybe he used it to communicate with that boat, then broke it so nobody else could do the same." That gave her an idea. "If we could find another one like it somewhere, somehow..."

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

"It's great to meet our -- Lillith's family, I mean," Brad said, blushing again as he realized they weren't his own relatives yet. "Maybe, we can do things together after, well, you know ..."

He backed away from what he'd been about to propose; the look on Jerecht's face suggested that might be wise. He looked for a graceful conversational exit and found one. "Speaking of doing things together, where's Maduin? I think he'd be glad to see you too -- wouldn't he?"

[Sareth]

"I don't know. I'm never quite certain what he's up to. He's a sweet and kind man, but he always seems to have things to do when we're doing the things we need to do." Lillith paused a moment. "I'm not quite certain that came out the way I meant it. Anyway, maybe Rose knows? She and Father are pretty much our defacto leaders here," she explained to Fayna and Jerecht. "They'd know if anyone did."

[Drusia]

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I wipe my eyes, leaning against Eli.

"I don't know," I say. "I... don't even know what I'd tell you that you don't already know. It hurts. It shouldn't, not this much, not after so long, but... it just hurts."

I open my mouth to say more, but the words are just too big and I start crying again.

-- Desiree

[Drannin]

Fayna glanced around. "Speaking of which, were is Maduin? I would have thought he'd be here."

"No idea," Argus put in, "He had something to attend to back in Getsemiel. Not sure what."

[Graybeard]

OOC in its entirety (I'll have something to say in character when I get home from work, putting this in quickly over lunch):

I would value opinions as to which of several directions we might want to go here, once the reunion and introductions are complete, and the things with Maduin and John Wolf/Lantos resolve. (A merry airship chase?) The possibilities I can think of are:

• Southern Continent. The goal would be to try (as a result of orders received by Rose) to figure out just what happened with Blaise down there. Pros: opportunities to let our collective imaginations run wild on unexplored territory; moving the "mystery" and BBEG significantly farther along. Cons: Why would anyone other than Rose and maybe Tim and Argus want to go there?
• Emerylon. Rose needs to report back to HQ somehow. Pros: An exotic setting of a different sort for people to interact with; continuing tension about Kenny, as will be clear; other things connected with Blaise's more recent past. Cons: The Orthodox Luminositan nature of the place might restrict what people can do; again, why would some of the characters want to go there?
• Tsuiraku. Go off chasing after Blaise, with possible intermediate stops (don't forget, there are weddings coming up too...). Pros: Very direct continuity with the Blaise stuff; most characters would have a reason to do it; possible interactions with the three nasties (Kurou, Haniko Goto, Bauti). Cons: Some interesting(?) sub-threads would be left behind.
• Any other ideas?

Opinions very much solicited, and I'll work on something as a scenario once thoughts on the path forward converge.

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC The most logical choice seems to be Tsuiraku, certainly the one that makes the most sense with the Blaise situation. Of course, I wouldn't mind a trip back to the southern continent, and if the group landed anywhere near Grendell there'd be interesting scenes in the aftermath of the plague that happened there recently (shameless plug for the 'To the Southern Continent' thread in the archives)./OOC