The search for Brother Dalton, part 2

[Alberich]

Then he got in Tim's face. "Sir, I'm only going to say this one more time. Settle down. Now."

Since this higher-ranking man hadn't spoken to Tim yet, that "one more" made no sense. But Tim stuck his face right back in this one's. He had no intention of "settling down" while his companions were carried off by monsters for monstrous purposes and these incompetent fools attacked him for pointing it out. He didn't yell but he didn't get soft either.

"That wizard just bewitched the minds of your clerk and your men. And he's just abducted two innocent women! You're letting it happen? Get after him or let me go so I can!"

"Tim! Lost 'em! Bad man took 'em 'way! Need the tracking magics or somethin'!"

Tim looked back to the higher-ranking officer. "Have you got some tracking magic? We might still save them and catch him!"

[Graybeard]

"Priestess Desiree," I say, offering him my hand. "And your name, officer...?"

The now-uniformed man inclined his head, then snapped his fingers. Magic glowed momentarily. A small item appeared in his hand, and this he extended to Desiree. "My card," he said.
KITAURA Kentauro
Captain, Tsuirakuan Army and Department of Homeland Security
Consulate of Tsuiraku
Port Lorrel, Farrel

He poured tea while Desiree was reading the card, placing cups before her and Anfisa with formal courtesy. "Now might we discuss your predicament, while we partake of this excellent beverage?" he said, his voice as bland as ever.

[OOC: She wouldn't recognize the uniform? Really? He would have been wearing it for the debriefing session back in Saus, where he was a "guest" for the first day. Anyway...]

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"That wizard just bewitched the minds of your clerk and your men. And he's just abducted two innocent women! You're letting it happen? Get after him or let me go so I can!"

The Tsuirakuan stared at Tim in bewilderment for a moment, and then comprehension dawned on his face. However, it was followed by a frown as he realized that he had a problem, a different one than just an unruly religious fanatic. When the "wizard" was traveling under cover, he took that cover very seriously. (Of course he did; Kitaura took everything seriously.) Blowing his cover to this barbarian would make him unhappy. The officer did not want to make Captain Kentauro Kitaura unhappy. At the same time, this situation was threatening to escalate anyway.

He was still trying to figure out how to resolve this dilemma when Tamina spoke up. "Tim! Lost 'em! Bad man took 'em 'way! Need the tracking magics or somethin'!" He didn't hear Tim's reply, because the consequences of turning tracking magic loose on Kitaura were simply too awful to contemplate, and he had had a sudden cold chill at the thought.

He made a decision. "That man is of no concern to you," he said coldly. "You will be held on -- on --" Inspiration dawned. "Suspicion of conspiracy to disrupt warp gate operations." If there wasn't a law against that, there should be.

[Alberich]

He made a decision. "That man is of no concern to you," he said coldly. "You will be held on -- on --" Inspiration dawned. "Suspicion of conspiracy to disrupt warp gate operations."

Tim didn't have time to be stunned. He called out to Tamina, "They won't help! Find Rose!" He doubted whether the nun would be able to solve this problem, a combination of way too much magic with way too little brains, but at least this way the kobold would get out before they decided to "hold" her again. He'd seen her in action - once she got moving, there was no one around who'd catch her!

He whipped his head back around to face the officer. "Is that what happens in Tsuiraku? You yell 'stop thief' and they arrest you and let the thief go?"

He toned it down. This wizard had gate spells like Drusia's, and from what he'd seen of those - he might be quite far away by now. Even a short teleport in a cramped city like this would make him damnably hard to find. Enough seconds had passed that there was no hope of line of sight; they'd need magecraft and manpower to find the poor girls. He tried the force of reason to get that -

"Look, it's my concern and yours too, if you've got a wizard around here abducting young women at the ticket counter. There's a fiendish traffic in human flesh in this port, you know. I've seen it!"

His shoulders straightened with pride, as he remembered that he and his friend Eli had not only seen slavers, but slain them. (It didn't occur to him, however, to actually say how he had "seen it." Persons inclined to think the worst of Orthodox Veracians, which is to say just about everyone except other Orthodox Veracians, might read this quite the wrong way.) He continued.

"Young women go to the ticket counter. The agent says they can't travel. This wizard's just hanging around there. He ensorcells the agent and stops her, then hints that he can 'help' with the travel, only he's got to talk to the girls alone, and through his magic door. He throws their escorts around with his gates, and does slowing enchantments so that none may come to their aid. He enchants your battlemages so they seize the blameless, while he makes off with the girls.

"Don't you see? He must be a lure for the slavers, or a slaver himself, poised to take young women at their most vulnerable...and he's getting away with them! He's had time to get them far, but if you've got tracking magic, we might still catch him before his friends do unspeakable things. Surely that's more important than any 'gate operations!'"

Tim spoke in great earnest, never suspecting the whole thing was hopeless, that the 'enchantments' he saw were really mind speech, that the suspicious-acting, bullying wizard was a high-ranking official who preferred to assert his authority inside a suspicious-looking disguise, or that Desiree would go off with a mysterious stranger of her own accord, no, never, not in this town where she'd almost been enslaved.

* * *

At Geno's, with a Desiree who hadn't hestitated to do just that, Anfisa remembered having met this Kitaura. His name had come up even when he wasn't there and those silly priests were boring her stupid with their endless men's business. She remembered Therese thinking he might have something to do with the strangers who'd followed her, Therese, and Tim around while they were sightseeing in that awful Saus, though she herself figured them for Veracians.

Regardless, she chose not to admit any of this memory. Better to say less than she knew, and let Desiree win their way out of here, then off to a better life! She kept her eyes downcast but open, to make sure he wasn't slipping anything stronger into that tea. Who knew what he might try to turn this scene into? And that might be all right but he mustn't leave them high and dry with no travel documents. If he wanted to make passes, they needed to get passes.

[Jack Rothwell]

"They won't help! Find Rose!"

Tamina, unusually for her, was actually pretty taken back by the Priest's words. Her old enemies weren't known for being particularly selfless in their behavior and Tim's willingness to deal with the security alone was definitely evidence to support him being an honest, non-evil 'yooman' as opposed to a mind-controlling megalomaniac. The kobold gave him an 'a'kay' and scurried the way she came. Once out in the sunshine, she paused, channeled, then launched herself like a bullet in a magic, pinwheeling blur of limbs to get back to their party leader.

OOC Have Tamina arrive at your convenience Grey. Feel free to have her relay the details if you're eager to jog this on./OOC

[Graybeard]

OOC:

OOC Have Tamina arrive at your convenience Grey. Feel free to have her relay the details if you're eager to jog this on./OOC

Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss this for the world. /OOC:]

Sister Rose fidgeted impatiently as she waited for Tamina and Tim to appear. Something just wasn't feeling right here. It wasn't just the discomfort at having a badly fragmented party, with people running off every which way; there was something else. The airship didn't feel right. Despite Father Amalric's stern injunction, she couldn't help but get a sense of the magic that enveloped her and Argus, and there was clearly more to it than just augmented lift and propulsion. The thing just reeked of magic, and it wasn't just the Conjuration magic required for lift. There was something ... powerful there, but Rose couldn't make heads nor tails of it.

She was just about to share her concerns with Argus -- the other concern would have to wait until they were off the airship -- when there was a commotion at the bottom of the ramp, and Tamina came into view in her inimitable way. "What's wrong?" Rose asked, the oddities of the airship forgotten for the moment. [OOC: Over to you, Jack, have fun with it...]

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The Tsuirakuan officer rolled his eyes. "Sir, there is no human trafficking going on in this terminal. The only one causing a problem is you. And you leave me no choice." He muttered a spell, and the Binding was back, but this time encasing Tim, not Tamina.

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Around this time, the Veracian temple (which wasn't far away) was receiving a very curious visit from a Farrelian police officer.

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OOC: Nothing more from Kitaura or Therese until Desiree or Anfisa responds to Kitaura.

[Jack Rothwell]

"Rose!"

The kobold's first word came at a high pitched squeak as the 'hummingbird' spell she'd propelled herself with turned off and drew her to an abrupt halt. Tamina had pushed herself hard to find the nun. as her somewhat laboured speech testified.

"Bad man! -wheeze- Kidnap! -pant- Dezzy n' Anfi! Haaaaaa... warp gates! Tim's being 'rested! -pant- Help!"

[Graybeard]

"Bad man! -wheeze- Kidnap! -pant- Dezzy n' Anfi! Haaaaaa... warp gates! Tim's being 'rested! -pant- Help!"

Sister Rose didn't have a great deal of experience with the twisting, darting and weaving of the kobold mind, and she was rather taken aback by this declaration. "Whoa! Slow down!" she said. "Tell me what happened, starting from the beginning."

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Back at the warp gate, Tim was being frogmarched to the very same door that had magically appeared when Kitaura had asked the ticket agent about a private room. A gesture from the still-nervous agent, and the door opened, revealing a small, stark room with three chairs and a glaring overhead light. An observer with magical detection skills would have noticed that the entire place was permeated with magic of several different forms. Included among these were Illusions to hide the images of attractive travel scenes in Tsuiraku and the sales brochures that were used here, under more "normal" circumstances, to persuade potential customers that the sky city might be a fine place for a wealthy Farrelite to take a vacation. Behind the illusions, the room wasn't stark at all -- rather the contrary -- but that didn't matter.

"All right, now you're going to talk," the Tsuirakuan officer growled as Tim was deposited none-too-gently into one of the chairs, and the outline of the door faded from view.

[Alberich]

"Indeed I am," said Tim. And I'm not going to stop talking when the Church gets me out of here, either! He did not fear a truth spell, for he had spoken nothing but the truth, and he did not fear their torture, for he expected to be rescued soon. He'd already accepted the fact that none of these corrupt heathen barbarians were going to do a damned thing to rescue his companions, and so he'd just have to wait for Rose and Argus before anything got done.

In fact, he was beginning to suspect his captors were in on this abduction, maybe had an "arrangement" with that slaver's agent. If even Father Boris could be corrupted by Gorielian rubies, who was to say a Tsuirakuan portal guard couldn't be corrupted by Lorrelian gold, or even a taste of captive flesh for himself? Well, for the moment, Tim couldn't end that - he just had to hold on 'til his allies came through. The Lord would be his strength.

[OOC: It would've been simpler if Tamina didn't speak "yooman" at all...

Meow meow m'meow meow meow mrrrrowwwwr!

"What is it, girl? Timmy's been taken into custody by the Tsuirakuans? A mysterious wizard has made off with Dezzy and Anfi? There might be international political implications? Lead the way!"]

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC I was so tempted to do something like that for pure comic effect but alas, the situation was a little too serious for it. Although it might be a funny twist if Tamina did temporarily lose her ability to talk at some point (a miscast/curse/spell... something along those lines?)./OOC

"Tell me what happened, starting from the beginning."

With no small amount of effort, the kobold managed to catch her breath and get her emotions under some control. A thing especially difficult for her species in times of stress. Recent events were a little blurred between the recent spells and the thrashing around and the screaming. Even so, she relayed the events as best she could.

"We were at the gate, 'bout to go when an expensive looking man, business-type man? Came an' offered some ass-it's-ants, 'sis-tance'? Umm... help.'"

By now Tamina had settled down from frantic to merely worried. The humanoid had tugged her tail free from the leg of her pants and was anxiously fidgeting with the end.

"Then he started using magic, some strong stuff. Made Tim tel-e-port like Dru can. Made a magic door n' asked Dezzy and Anfi to follow him through." She read the alarmed expressions of the listeners and waved a hand. "Dint go through! Well... not that one anyway... dunno where they went after they left with him. Oh! Right. Skipped ahead. Some guardy people turned up, but they grabbed Tim, dint listen to anything he said. Tried to help, talk to 'em." He ears dropped in recollection of the recent trauma. "One guard shot me with a staff, some sticky, bindy spell thing... I wasn't happy 'bout it. Got out, but couldn't walk prop'ly for a while, n' they left before I could catch up. Tim's at the warp place still, think the guards are still messing with him."

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose listened with growing bewilderment at Tamina's "narrative," such as it was. She thought she understood the story, despite it darting this way and that just as the storyteller did. But why was a "businessman" taking an interest in Desiree and Anfisa? Surely they hadn't been ... provocative? Luminosita knew, they were highly sexual (and highly attractive) women, but they'd always known better than to trade on their sexuality where it wouldn't be appropriate. And what was this about "guardy people"? Rose knew the Tsuirakuans kept security forces on duty at the warp gates; she'd seen them herself when she gated from Kiyoka to Saus to join Argus and Brother Miguel. All indications, however, were that it was a pretty routine, boring job, with not much going on. What about this little group had caught the attention of "guardy people"?

Then Tamina got to the bottom line. "Tim's at the warp place still, think the guards are still messing with him." Well, that was clear enough. She rolled her eyes. "Luminosita's Sacred Sweatband," she muttered to Argus. "That's why we're -- I guess I'd say 'selective' about who we send to the mission in Kiyoka. This is partly my fault. I should never have let Tim go with the girls. Looks like we're going to have to go rescue him."

After a word to a clearly disapproving Father Amalric, she, Argus and Tamina set off for the warp gate. On the way, she had a quick mind-chat with Argus. <"You may have to do the fast talking there, you know your countrymen better than I do, probably. But what's this about a 'businessman' who casts powerful magic? I don't understand that at all. Any ideas?">

[OOC: A, if you want to transact the "conversation" between Tim and the battlemages, feel free; I think you have some idea of what they're all about by now. As far as I'm concerned, we can just assume it proceeds along the same, not very fruitful lines that we've already seen, and not play it explicitly. The only important point that may not be completely clear is that they will absolutely refuse to give Tim any information about the "businessman." As for Desiree and Anfisa, as soon as one or both respond to Kitaura's probe, we can move things forward at the restaurant.]