Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Jack Rothwell »

Corningstone looked over his shoulder for the fifth or sixth time since Logan's men had left the highway trading town and turned to face the sinking sun with a furrowed brow.

"Something troubling you, merchant?"

"I'm concerned, Captain Haverum." The man replied. "Logan's orders were to investigate the tradeswoman and negotiate an exchange is the quality of her work was up to par, why offer her an escort to the Port?"

"Because I plan to offer her work when we arrive." The half-elf murmured, he held a forestalling hand at the trader's opening mouth and made his explanation. "She had good work, but the quantity was limited. She needs a sponsor, and with John Mirrilum throwing his financial support behind Logan Enterprises we could provide her with the materials to arm the whole Black guard company." He pointed a finger at the approaching gates that led into the city. "...and when she arrives at the Port in our escort, and see's the respect our people command, she'll know where her best interests lie."

The look in Corningstone's eyes spoke volumes, it was grudgingly respectful, but cautious nevertheless.

"A shrewd tactic Eli. But are you sure our employer will agree?"

"I'm sure Lucas will see the benefit of my initiative." The half-elf said, his hand dipping unconsciously to his belt as he wheeled his horse around to head back down the line. The convoy of soldiers rode smoothly past their leader and into Port Lorrel with hails of greeting from the passing townsfolk. The merchant realised that the Captain had chosen the entrance to Brambrook to lead the escort through, and best show off the work that the rest of the Company was doing in this process. The effect wasn't lost on the weaponsmith as Eli fell in line next to her and tilted in his saddle for a murmured word.

"Shrewd." Corningstone repeated quietly.
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Graybeard
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Graybeard »

The rookie cop finally figured something out. This seemingly random back-and-forth dashing around had been slowly edging them toward the warehouse district. Captain Brownian had made it very clear, on his first day, that he must never, never, never enter the warehouse district unless a senior member of the force had ordered him to, and was going with him. He didn't know why, but orders were orders. Random and back-and-forth the movement might be, but it was not the kind of thing of which the Captain would have approved.

"Er, um, don't try anything," he finally got out, and left the others to their decidedly non-Brownian motion.
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Drusia
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Drusia »

"I'm just thinking... even if we win... I don't have a home to go back to. I'm just... fighting to save what's left. Even then, more people die, some of them might not even be bad. Seems so pointless..."
She put down the meal she'd been eating and shuffled a little closer to the elf.
"I... umm... owe you an explanation about... 'that' night. I got worried about what was coming, I wanted to get ready to face it so I went to train instead of... anything else." Her cheeks were crimson now, and she'd taken a sudden interest in the floor a few feet in front of her.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push you away."


"You didn't," I reply, smiling. "Push me away, I mean. We all react to impending danger differently. During a war, you get to see all kinds of reactions. An old friend of mine used to get drunk and fuck anyone who'd take her." Usually me, often me and one or two others - details I shant add at the moment. "Another kept celibate and would meditate on his frustrations the night before a battle. He said he was building up rage for his foes." My smile turns playful, letting her know it's okay to laugh. It's what he would have wanted.

"You needed time alone," I continue philosophically. "It happens. But thank you anyway. I appreciate that this wasn't easy to say, and I'll take that gift as it was intended." Another playful smile at that - it takes skill to flirt while talking about such serious things.

"As far as your home goes," I say, letting my smile fade, "It was pretty wrecked up. But it can be rebuilt. As someone who knows what it's like to watch her home sink beneath the ocean, I can say with some authority that your home wasn't that bad off. It will have scars, and it isn't safe at the moment, but it will be there once we finish off the Ralkin. You can't replace the people you lost, but you can rebuild in their honor. Not the same - things are never the same - but new, and good, and home once again." I let my smile return, albeit wistfully, thinking of Snamish and Tsuirakushiti, neither quite the same as Malacia, but both home in their own way.

She mentioned the pointlessness, but I can't really help her there. War is pointless. Even when you get caught up in sides and causes. Even now, my battle with the Ralkin is probably pointless. I kill them or they kill me, but either way the problem won't end. New Errants will rise. That or a new peregin will be assigned, thanks to Sar's knowledge about where I was going. She'll finish this if I can't. So, in the grand scheme, it really is pointless. However, it is also personal. I've always dealt with personal better anyway.

The Errant War was like that too, come to think of it. Personal.

"Anyway," I say, waving away the heavyness of my thoughts, "If you like, I'm here now. Not pushed away. Not even a little."

-- Drusia
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Alberich »

Yogi at last had brought Udo, and whoever was now with Udo, to their destination. This was a dank but solidly-built little brick station on the edge of a warehouse. Yogi sat at the desk on the officers' side, which was devoid of booking records, inspirational slogans, or any other pretense that this police station was being used in the work of justice. The adventurers sat inside the iron-barred cell, which had only one decoration - a tacked-up page from a lute ballad by Carlos' brother Antonio:

He dropped the soap right on the floor.
He's not gonna need it any more
And if you can't be with the one you love, honey,
Love the one you're with...

Sergeant Smith sat just outside the iron-barred cell, listening. Udo had acquiesced to being locked in while they talked. The idea was to put the strangers in a state of fear, lest they waste the Eisenfaust's time. Udo, however, wasn't worried at all, firstly because he wasn't wasting their time, and secondly because they had ample means to get out of here if it came to that, even if he had no staff.

Udo was spilling the beans. He told them these Black Guards were, at root, the "Ralkin," users of forbidden elf magic. He told of Captain Gabriel's expedition, of his use of channeled archmage magic from their true leader, "Aleron," and of his death at the hands of elf and kobold. He did not tell, because he did not know, of Gabriel Averis' longstanding evil reputation in the Lorrelian Guard, which had only grown worse since he'd escaped the Gallows under mysterious circumstances that left just about everyone dead, and then emerged as one of the Black Guard's principal lieutenants. But this was doubtless well known to the Eisenfaust infiltrator.

Udo told of the interrogated prisoners and the tales they'd been told - that the Black Guard would soon rule Port Lorrel, and they'd share in the ever-increasing wealth of this organization. He told also of the Ralkin's ability to turn their defeated enemies into raving monsters such as he'd slain in the south, and their knowledge of mind control magic that subtly converted their victims to their cause, and how their own magic warped them 'til they were beyond recognition. He didn't tell of the Ralkin books in Khoo's pocket dimension - they didn't need to know that.

"So anyway, you can see my point. With those big bad mages on top of their organization, you're gonna want all the help you can get to knock 'em out. We've got the elf nearby, right nearby, and we've got the mightiest of the kobolds. Not to mention us! 'specially if you've got a mage staff handy - I'm a wizard with one of those!" Well, yes, exactly.

"But our problem before was - they had hordes of grunts that we had to cut through before we could get to their main man. Also we don't have any intel. Also -- I felt that guy's power -- and he's King Tuphukintuph" - an obscure character from a fantasy comic that Smith wouldn't have seen, but Udo was so much at his ease he was slipping into his native metaphor. "So my point is we both need some help. You don't want these pissants climbing on top of the anthill, on accounta' they'll piss on you when they get there. We want to revoke their license to live on accounta' they so desperately need it. We've got the power to take 'em out, 'specially if you give us some support there, but we need help clearing the trash outta the way. And intel like where they are. Their head guy, their main captains, oh, and if you've seen a funny looking altar" - he gave a rough description - "where they're keeping that thing.

"The way I see it, they're getting stronger and more popular every day, so this can't happen too soon! I'd be happy to learn that tomorrow is National Kick-Their-Ass Day. I'd do it at two in the morning if you could set it up that fast. Noon or night, wet or dry, help us stomp some Ralkin!"
Last edited by Alberich on January 30th, 2013, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"If you like, I'm here now. Not pushed away. Not even a little."

Tamina's smile lit up her face, although the sadness hadn't quite disappeared completely. She slowly shuffled right next to the elf and lifted a tentative hand to cup the other woman's face.

"Thanks for being patient with me." She whispered, and then looked into Drusia's eyes. "I'm glad you're here."

The kiss was a passionate one, particularly for someone of Tamina's (fairly) limited experiance. It was embracing, and caressing hands, and a slow slide towards the earth. When it finally broke the kobold was breathing as if she'd just run a race. She smiled and let out a giggle.

"I was right." She said. "<Breathtaking>."

.....

Eli had finally, after no small amount of negotiation, a hefty amount of help from Corningstone and a few runners carrying messages to and fro from one district of the Port to another to obtain the necessary documentation, managed to convince the Rinkaiel Weaponsmith to sign a short-term contract with the Black Guard. Although to the Captain's disapointment 'short-term' was an understatement, and even the skilled trader hadn't managed to get Jade to agree to a 'short term no-sales clause' after it's completion to stop their competitors from catching up to the Guard's advantage. The half-elf intended to broach the subject of indoctrinating her with Aleron that evening, with their communcations likely contaminated, he had little choice but wait on the issue.

He left his men with orders to house the woman in one of the companies shacks near a Guard outpost which included a forge in his design, and instructions to pass onto the traders about acquiring the necessary materials for her to work with. Getting squads of men armed with mana-rifles would put the fear of Gods into the small-minded cops and robbers who thought they ran the Port. After that, the question would only be when and where to use them.

"Nice doing business with you." The woman called as she hauled her belongings over the back of the fresh mount Logan's people had brought to her. The weaponsmith swung a leg over the saddle with a theatrical flap of the leather duster that reached to the woman's knee. The animal whinnied as the sudden breeze, as if in annoyance.

"Pleasure's all mine." The half-elf replied, managing to inject an iota of warmth in the statement. He turned his own mount around and went to find Brother Tim.

OOC Feel free to skip the lesson and move to the pair having a private conversation Al. I can fill in anything important later./OOC
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Alberich »

Later that night, at The Jilted Heart, Brother Tim was steadying his nerves with a pint. The evening's lesson had been hard but enticing and rewarding. The summoning magic was growing too easy too fast. The art of projecting the symbols without drawing them had taken less than a day, and every creature he called came more readily than the last. The magic sang sweetly like the Erl-king while his fears swirled in a storm-wind. The crisis needed to come soon! And he had to keep the lessons up, had to keep a reason for being near Eli when it happened.

Eli was with him for now. Their friendship was strangely comforting amid this danger, though it was what had drawn him there in the first place. And now they did have more to talk about, more knowledge in common, maybe soon to be shared by no one else alive. The two compared notes on the emotions they felt after summoning the different creatures - the silka-fear, the galdy-belligerence, and so on. The feelings after calling a galdy were especially heady - they were so far from what Tim was normally allowed to feel, a low man in the churchly hierarchy, a neglected voice by Rose, the butt of bullying for Drusia, the irritating nonentity for Argus and Therese, the joke of the day for Anfisa...but when he had a galdy up, he felt like master of them all.

He didn't put it quite like that - but he expressed it as best he could. "And it's like that with the galdy, but the Silka, it's very much the opposite - and the longer I have it up, the more natural it seems. Is it the same with you?" His sometime-stammer was gone.

Of course, he knew this was the demonic influence, getting at them through their sins - the sin of cowardice for the silka, the sin of pride for the galdy, and he could only pray the crisis would come before he summoned the monsters that strengthened the sins of disloyalty and lust, for then he feared he would surely be lost. Even that vulgar vixen of Eli's might start looking good, or the thousands of others in this lawless, heathen land. Worse, if the magic killed friendship itself in the end, the purpose that sustained him would go while sin sapped his faith. No, he must pray silently and earnestly that the crisis would come soon.

* * *

Meantime, in a dingy barred cell elsewhere in town, men in strange disguises who had no respect for Tim's faith were doing their damnedest to grant his prayer.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Very much so." Eli replied to Tim's question, a giddy smile on his face from the evening's practise. "To be honest I quite like it. You should try summoning a pack of Galdy, you can feel their regard...they look to you as a pack leader, an alpha male." The grin took on a wolfish quality as the half-elf thought back on his own progress in the art. Thanks for the lessons Aleron had given him he could hold the riens on four of the feline monsters at a time, although coming down from the effort invariably required him to smash up something afterwards just to vent the predatory killing instinct the creatures left behind.

"Aleron prefers chittoricks, can't say I care much for them myself." He continued. "They... empty you out, give you a sense of the world uncoloured by emotion. The old man says that drawing them gives him the mindset to make decisions based purely on logic. By the way things are going in the Port right now, I'd conceed to his ideas." He rested his chin on an upraised hand with a touch of weariness in his posture.

"You know... sometimes it hits me out the blue how far we've both come since we joined up with Rose's circus." He said, although there was little venom in his voice as his thoughts turned to his old travelling companions, despite the terms they had parted on. Somehow they seemed far away, unimportant. "Me, the hot-tempered guardsman, sheltered from the world, you, the stuffed-shirt, the pious Priest. And now here we are, trained summoners with the fate of a city resting in our hands." Part of his speech was bravado from the lesson, but his sentiment was geniune.
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Graybeard »

OOC: Assume that Smitty will take the message back to Annabelle (who's running the Eisenfaust's waterfront operation in Elke's extended absence) and then disappear from the chain of events. He's just there to listen. Back over to you guys; Khoo will do something when there is something that needs him.

As regards what the Eisenfaust will do as a result ... let's discuss. A short OOC thread in the discussion forum, maybe?
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Alberich »

Tim's jaw clenched a little at that stuffed shirt. It was hard not letting it show - if he followed Eli's advice and spent time summoning galdies, he'd get to where he would, and that would be disastrous. He'd fought with Eli very briefly once before - but that had been pure sword to sword. With Eli's gem and the new magic he'd learned, realistically, Tim would be dead in moments, and anyway it would defeat his mission.

It was easy to see how evil by nature turned on itself - that was why heathen countries fell into anarchy and tyranny so easily, as Goriel and Farrel did. Did his faith not sustain him, he'd be at Eli's throat before he could think. But for now he still had control of himself.

"I still have my faith," he said evenly. Not unfriendly, but not supplicating, either. "Still I saw some good people in Brambrook and they deserve better than they've had under the old order. So if their fate is in our hands I hope when we set them down they're better than when we took them up. And that we can keep them out of the crossfire if any of those peregins and kobolds show up, that you were talking about before."

[OOC: I just noticed that "peregins and kobolds" scans like "heffalumps and woozles."]

"What do you think it'll take to stop them coming? I mean, you remember there were two in Goriel City - coming by stealth and ready to kill - do we just knock them over one at a time 'til they get the message?" To a raised eyebrow at the "we" he replied, "I can't commit the Church to the Black Guard cause. But I certainly can defend myself against any elves who attack when I happen to be around. That includes any friends of mine who happen to be right there. If that happened, who could say the elf was not aiming at me?" He knew Eli would get the point.

* * *

For all he'd been robbed, stripped, and disarmed that morning, Udo was well pleased with himself now. Now they had some allies and a contact to make, and they were free to return to camp. This wasn't Udo's first time in a jail cell, not quite, but it was by far the easiest he'd ever gotten out. Now those dimwits just had to report to their masters, so he could make the rendezvous they'd discussed, and get on with some action!

The question, though he did not think it, was whether there was "action" going on back at camp already.

[OOC: Okay, I'll add a reply to the ER discussion thread with my thoughts.]
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Port Lorrel- Puppet Masters

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"If the church shows willingness to commend our actions that'll make a public strike harder to justify, but those damn assassins..."

Eli's mood darkened as Tim recalled the night in Goriel where he'd come within an inch of being cut down by Drusia and her elven friend. The thought of going against the woman who'd taught him to fight a second time was unappealing, but if he could tip the odds in his favor...

"Disspell traps around important locations would be a start, more guards, mages if we can get them... and the new munitions we've just acquired will help." He winked at the Priest's questioning look. "Top secret Black Guard business, we're not making waves on that issue yet. And as far as stopping them goes... I doubt we will, they'll likely send one Peregin after another until they finally get pissed off enough to send a whole damn squad, then... things are likely to get bloody, at least with our good works so public the 'supreme beings' will look like the instigators... and then word start to spread of that..." He trailed off.

"One step at a time. So, on the subject of preparations, are you making any leeway with the men of the cloth?"

.....

Tamina awoke from a light doze feeling a dull ache in her body and an unexpected chill, she opened an eye and glanced downwards...

"Oh." She giggled. "That's why..."

Clothes were scattered about the campsite as if discarded in a hurricane, and co-conspirator of the mess was currently laying next to the kobold, under the clasping arm of the southern continent native. Tamina looked up into a pair of pretty eyes staring back at her.

"Hi." She said, with a good amount of her usual perkiness.
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