Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

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Graybeard
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Graybeard »

"Yes, this looks like it should work just fine," Jun Oshima nodded approval. The weapons storage site out in the boonies of Farrel hadn't worked, just as he'd warned the others it wouldn't, although for rather different reasons. Now something else was going to be needed, and this site seemed to have just what it took.

He looked at a low, spreading tree at the edge of the site and turned to his guide. "Give me your weapon." The guide looked taken aback; one didn't simply ask a Farrelian guildsman to give up his gun. On the other hand, one didn't antagonize a Tsuirakuan archmage needlessly, either. He blinked and complied.

Oshima hefted the pistol, estimating how much volume it would take to hide the thing. Then he turned to the tree, and magic flowed from his fingers. A small, gun-shaped cavity developed in the main trunk. Oshima placed the pistol within, emitted more magic. A blur of light, and the tree was as it had always been ... apparently.

The Farrelite didn't like that. "Hey, wait! I might need that gun, they get lepivores around here! Give --"

Oshima cut him off, in a tone of voice that another Tsuirakuan might have recognized as that of a parent talking to a rather slow child. "Then get it yourself. It is there, after all."

Grumbling, the Farrelite guildsman bent to the tree ... and with a wide-eyed look, came up holding his gun. He was about to say something, expressing amazement at the concealment magic, when one of the other Tsuirakuans came running up to them.

"Oshima-san! Oshima-san!" the man called, a bit out of breath. "That gaijin with the baby that we saw up north, the one that wears chaos like a robe ... she's here! I just saw them!"
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

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It was several minutes later in the tavern where the cat-gi... kobold was getting acquainted with the ogling troupe. At some point a drink had mysteriously materialized in Tamina's paw-like hand. The humanoid was currently the center of attention as she regaled them with her recent shenanigans.

"Yeah and...umm... the plague-y things were attacking the town! Had to go help with the killikah. Had to stop them. Bad man turned up. Ralkin. Was in charge of them. Turned himself into a plague-y cloud! Had to use magic, charged a gun to shoot him."

"Magic? You can use magic?" Asked the wide-eyed, buck-toothed boy.

The kobold nodded vigorously, giggling at the hat he wore and unselfconsciously patting the brim.

"Learned it from m' teacher, Elder, Leli. Oh! Let me show you."

She reached over to an empty glass on the table and drew it towards her. She placed her palm on the top of it, closed her eyes and began mumbling under her breath. It was a trick she hadn't needed to use in a while, a seeing spell of a kind which helped her see into the make-up of an object. She reached into the small mass with her mind and 'asked' it to remember what it used to be.

Tamina felt the glass change under her palm and heard gasps from the people around her. She opened her eyes and saw the receptacle shimmying downwards as it crumbled back into sand. When it was done, the humanoid picked up a handful and rubbed it in a shower.

"Not amazing." She conceded . "Leli's better. Learned a lot though."
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

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A loud bang echoed from the engine room of Mr. Stagpoole's flying boat, and almost immediately, it started to settle back into the water. Cursing, Keyes emerged from the pilot room to see Father Blaise clinging to the rail.

"Damn," Keyes swore. "Dat didn't tound good. We may hab lot de endine. Ip we did, I'm going to hab to put up de tail and turn dit ting around to Lorrel. We don't want to crot de Parrel Tea under tail ... are you all right?"

Blaise turned to the half elf, his face a shade of purplish gray. "Blrgle ... seasick enough while this Luminosita-damned thing was working right, and now ... Please, just let me die."

Don't tempt me, Keyes thought sourly. "Try to put up wit it por anoder hour," he said. "Eider I'll be able to get de motor working again, or I'll turn ut around and heabe ober to the tore line, to pollow back down to Lorrel. It won't be to roup dere."

Blaise, however, wasn't listening; as soon as Keyes had used the word "heave," his stomach had taken it not as a plan, but as an instruction. Keyes rolled his eyes and headed for the engine room as Blaise made his unscheduled contribution to the biomass of the Farrel Sea.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

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"Ahhh..." said the lad, impressed and wanting to impress. How best to impress the kobold? With his best-rehearsed trick of course! But he had to know..."Are you wearing underwear?"

The girl at the table, ignoring her compatriot, asked a different question - "Have you ever thought of running away to join the circus?"

The mouse peeped out from the girl's dark hair, saying nothing.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Under-wear?" The kobold's brow furrowed in instant suspicion, and then talking to the woman. "Not running away! Vacation! But yeah... err... sir-cuss? Yeah, sir-cuss sounds fun! What's a sir-cuss?"
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Alberich »

The girl edged closer to the kobold. "Why, it's entertainment! Travel! Adventure! Going from town to town, making the people laugh, filling them with wonder! The open road! The wind in your, ah, fur!"

The buck-toothed boy, itching to draw the pretty kobold's attention back to himself, joined in eagerly. "Yes! You impress them by doing magic tricks - like this!" He leaned over to where the girl had already gotten close, and tapped Tamina's left shoulder. (There was something thrilling about touching her.) "Excuse me, miss, excuse me?" He tapped again. "I think there's something under your clothes" -- and then, on the opposite side, Tamina felt a succulent little white mouse squeezing out onto her shoulder.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: This should probably be in Background Noise, but just so the stage is set:]

Jun Oshima swore under his breath. What was it with these barbarians, anyway? The whole point of coming to Lorrel was anonymity. There were abundant reasons to be concerned that the operation in Rinkaiel had been blown, so the Family was thinking of moving across the barbarians' country to set up again in a place where no one knew them. If someone did know them there, it would defeat the whole point of the thing.

There was another thing. What if he was being followed?

Well, there were ways to take care of that. He nodded at his underling, even made a slight bow to express appreciation (and to get the point across that he wasn't inclined to shoot the messenger). "Thank you," he said. "And now, let us prepare to move east. I believe that our investigations here require us to move rather deeper into the wilds of this country than I had been hoping for."

Where no one will notice if the gaijin happens to meet with a little accident, he thought but did not say.

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[OOC: And also, as requested by Porcelain Fish ;) :]

Keyes came back on deck, swearing under his breath -- his speech impediment didn't disguise that at all. "Damn," he said to his annoying passenger. "De endine id broken beyond my ability to repair out here. I'm not eben ture I'll be able to do mut wit it in town. De technolody id -- unudual. But dit boat idn't teaworty witout it. We're going to habe to go back to Lorrel."

Blaise felt his anger rising, and for a moment, considered whether he could just kill this incompetent vassal and take command of the boat himself. On reflection, though, that wouldn't do. He had no seafaring skills at all, and doing that would simply lead to him being marooned out here. That would end badly whether Stagpoole found him or not. If someone else found the boat first, it would be unlikely that he could keep certain other things from being discovered as well. And if Stagpoole found him instead ... the Committee wouldn't like this at all. That could be very bad. Terminally bad.

He tried to compose his face neutrally as he replied. "Very well, then. I'll try to arrange alternate transportation in Lorrel. Do what you must." The boat came around.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Jack Rothwell »

It was true that the kobold's had a weakness for fresh meat, particularly the kind that was as recently dead as possible, and it was certainly animal instinct that made Tamina snatch the rodent as it attempted to make a break for the floor, but social decency that prevented her from disemboweling the thing and taking off to find a fire to cook it on. The squeaking animal found itself dangling by its tail between the stubby digits of the humanoid, its legs pinwheeling furiously.

"Siika! Good with rosemary and salt... oh! And pinenuts! But... ahh... shouldn't put it on the peoples shoulders, spoils the flavor and... oh, it's crapped on the table."

Tamina carefully put the tiny animal on the table, upon which it took off like a rocket towards its owner and did a dive that took it to the deepest recesses of the woman's deepest pocket. She looked up and gave the theatrical people her best smile.

"Like the open road, love magic. You... umm... doing a show here tonight? Entertaining the peoples? Love to help!"

Tamina, admittedly, didn't know for sure whether the group she found herself with were connected to the 'Oshima' they were looking for but, what the hell, pure curiosity was reason enough for her to take part in the show.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Graybeard »

"Miter Tagpoole taid he'll tend anoter tip overnight," Keyes told his decidedly peevish passenger, as he came up topside from his -- very -- private cabin now that the ship was safely docked (and concealed). "Won't get here until late tomorrow, dough. Might at well make ourtelve comportable." He shrugged his shoulders.

Can I kill him now? Father Blaise thought sourly to himself. No, it still wouldn't do. Stagpoole was a more, one might say, "entrenched" member of the Committee than he was. Killing his right-hand man, er, Errant for no apparent reason might cause ... complications. He put on a smile that he definitely did not feel. "As you wish."

Keyes knew better than to take that smile at face value, so to speak, but at least it was something. "Want me to drop you op at de temple of your turt in Lorrel?" Now why did the man have that horrified look on his face?

"No, that would -- be unfortunate," the priest(?) replied. Damn. I may have to kill him after all, if I can't get him off that track. He searched mentally for an excuse, found one. It even had a veneer of truth to it. "I was sent on my mission by the Cardinal Inquisitor's office. When a representative of the Inquisitor shows up without warning at a temple far from Emerylon, it tends to be taken as an investigation, and things don't go as -- cordially as one would wish." Pursue that and you're a dead man, Stagpoole or no Stagpoole. He started rallying his energies for a spell.

Keyes, however, merely shrugged. "At you wit. Por an alternatibe, dere'd tuppote to be a troop in town prom Tuiraku, doing a comedy act wit tage madic. Dey're tuppote to be pretty punny, prom what I heard. Dat might be a way to kill tome time, ip it idn't contrary to your relidion." The latter was a throwaway; he'd already deduced that this man's "religion" was very different from what he knew of the Church of Luminosita, but some things shouldn't be examined too closely.

Blaise thought about it. "No, that shouldn't be a problem. Our government is saying we're supposed to be building better relations with the Tsuirakuans anyway." (If Keyes knew about the rampant xenophobia in the Inquisitor's office, that statement would look very odd, but that was a church matter. Blaise, of course, was above such superstitious nonsense ... or below it.) "That sounds harmless enough. Let's go."

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

Meanwhile, Jun Oshima's own entourage was also making preparations to leave the city.
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Re: Port Lorrel: The search for Jun Oshima

Post by Jack Rothwell »

OOC Anyone know where Sareth got to? Difficult to continue the action without him, especially since everyone's favourite molestable kobold is currently nowhere near finding Jun./OOC
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