Rinkaiel

As we play, occasionally we'll close a thread and open a new one to keep the size of threads (and relative complexity) down to a dull roar. Here's where we store the closed posts from the history of Errant Road.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

"Just a minute," Layla said. "I want to do something before we go looking." She unslung the back carrier containing Zachary and extracted the carefully concealed single-shot pistol from its frame. Kalin's eyes got big for a moment, but what the hell, she was going to have to tip her hand about her trade sooner or later, and she definitely wanted to be ready in case this blood trail led to trouble. She wished she'd had a bit more firepower, but one couldn't have everything.

Not too surprisingly, the blood wasn't that hard to follow. Its path, however, was not exactly as expected. It led around the perimeter of the winery, passing a spot where a horse had obviously been hobbled. The track kept going, but Layla was surprised to observe that hoofprints lay both beneath and on top of the blood trail. It looked like whoever had been bleeding had passed by while a horse was here ... and just kept going.

Toward the off-limits shack at the far end of the property.
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4uk4ata
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by 4uk4ata »

Kalin had, indeed, looked with some barely concealed curiosity at the weapon Layla had drawn. By now, he reminded himself, it should not be surprising if her people had boar-hunting rifles, but he had still subconsciously expected her only to call the shots, not make them herself. Then he remembered how she tensed back at the wine presses yesterday - and yet again, remembered that this woman, and probably the others with her, were not exactly average people. Oh well, he thought, no time for that now.

Kalin and Sharo walked carefully, following the trail. Kalin himself had given Sharo free reign, figuratively as well as literally - he was keeping an eye on the vineyard as well. Whoever had shot at them last night had passed through the place - maybe now, in broad daylight, he could find more than he did during the night. Yet there was nothing, nothing except the trail... Unless someone had made the shot from a huge distance in starlight, they were top-grade sneaks.

He saw the horse tracks, and he pretty quickly saw where they - and the boot ones - were going. So this man had gone near the shack, for whatever reason. He had passed by a horse - and probably a rider - and continued - apparently without even stopping. Also, there had been no trace of Vikor and Sarya all morning. Something here looked a little weird. Kalin looked at Sharo, confused. "Who was here first - the horse or the man, eh?` You think they were really at the same time?"

He winced, and he was thinking of something at the exact same time Sharo said it. Luminosita damn whoever was behind this trickery. What if...

"Ma'am, have you heard of anyone else interested in this place? In particular anyone who might have a silent gun?"
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

"Silenced guns aren't all that rare a commodity." I've used one often enough myself, although I'm not going to tell you that. "Why do you ask?"
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4uk4ata
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by 4uk4ata »

"He and I were shot at with one, last night" Kalin says, in a "I-must-have-told-you" manner. "I don't know much about guns, but normally they aren't that hard to hear".

Which was all well and good, he thought, but normality wasn't doing very well recently. Normally he'd have thought it was just some weird tech-no-logikal thingie, but now he had also came across someone who couldn't be traced, and a horse that wasn't seen. He would love for there to be a simple explanation, but he was starting to wonder if there wasn't witchcraft involved again.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

"I don't know much about guns, but normally they aren't that hard to hear."

Well, that tells me one thing I was wondering about, Layla thought. "Don't be misled by bad fiction," she replied. "Mechanical silencers don't just make a gun completely soundless." Don't I wish. "There's still a little popping or swishing sound. You can't hear it very far away, but it's still there. Magical silencers, now..." She let that thought hang in midair as they walked back toward the shed ... but before they got there, there was another thought-provoking observation.

The trail of blood stopped cold at the boundary of the property, where the magical ward system, or whatever it was, ringed the shed. It hadn't been hard to follow to this point, but beyond the wards, it simply wasn't there.

--------

"Mission accomplished, sir," the Seeadler man said, back in Gryffyd's office-pool.

The Seeadler capo smiled thinly, an even odder expression on his face than it had been last time. "Good. The crew is waiting. Now let's get these people on their way and out of our hair." But not out of our sight.
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Sareth
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Sareth »

Some time later, and after a particularly vigorous conversation, I found myself wandering down to the docks, Nera on my hip, and Mother firmly in tow. I could tell my cheeks were still glowing a rather violent read from the discussion, and found myself discovering that I'd almost have preferred mother giving me a good spanking to the dressing down I actually had gotten. Mother was nothing if not a consummate wielder of a sharp tongue.

"It should be around here, somewhere," I commented sullenly.

Mother said nothing, and I found myself wondering if she had finally run out of words.

Yeah, I could be so lucky.

"Well," I said into the empty air. "I do hope that Marcus got the others headed this way, or it's going to be a *fun* trip."
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4uk4ata
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by 4uk4ata »

"Lum'nosita damn those witchfire-flingin', devil-conjurin', no-good gadgets!" Kalin grumbled quietly. Well, it didn't look like they were going to avoid this shed for long. He hadn't noticed anything particularly untoward yesterday, but here it was. The way the track was stopping right at the boundary was quite suggestive... And he could sense the lingering scent of blood disappearing as well. He looked down at Sharo for a confirmation. His companion was more puzzled than anything else. "Do we feel anything, eh?" he asked the dog. Sharo gave him a look that was, simply put, telling. "Here, then not here. Not there."

So apparently the dog couldn't sense anything. The memories of yesterday were a bit too fresh to try to just walk to the door, although perhaps walking the same route he took yesterday could work. What was that Oskar doing here in the first place? The horse tracks weren't going in this direction, so he wasn't following or being led. Kalin turned towards Layla... she seemed to be the one with the answers, when she decided to give them. "Ma'am, did you tell your man to check this shack?"

As he was asking her that, another question was puzzling him - why was there no trace of Vikor and Sarya all morning. Not even while they were coming close to the shed...
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

"Ma'am, did you tell your man to check this shack?"

That was a damn good question, Layla thought. Honestly, she couldn't remember. She didn't think so, though. The instructions had been simply to set up a stake-out. Unless Joe, who'd given the actual order and was still back at the house, had been more specific, Oskar would have had no particular reason either to check out the shack, or to avoid it. They should check when they rejoined Faye (and Zachary) and Joe, but the answer, which she passed to Kalin, was apparently no.

"What I'd really like to know," she continued, "is whether there is some way we can get into that thing and look at it ourselves. It just seems very improbable that whoever was bleeding here, Oskar or someone else, would suddenly stop when he got to the edge of the property. I wonder..."

I'm supposed to be learning to be a mage, she thought, not altogether accurately -- there was a large difference between what any of her superiors, let alone Kinabalu, hoped she could achieve, and the skills of even the most marginal Tsuirakuan mage. Still, the one little trick Soc had shown her in the park, before she lost her temper with that bitch Barb, might have some relevance here. For a moment she closed her eyes, tried to get a sense of the magic in the area, what it felt like -- they'd said her style of magical energy detection was kinesthetic rather than visual. She concentrated hard ... and yes, there was something here.

"There's magic at this boundary," she said. "I can sense it. It's like there's a curtain of some kind, pushing out of the ground and going way up, right where that wire that you found is buried in the ground. And right where the blood stops, by the way. I can't tell what it does, but it's there ... and no way in hell am I going to cross into it."
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AdamZero
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by AdamZero »

"I told everyone in our group, which amounts to us, Lucas, and Aiyee." I was sitting on the pier, carefully hidden from initial view by a stack of barrels now being loaded as part of the final cargo loading. "Looks like it's a skeleton crew for us." Boris quipped from under my cloak. "My kinda party."

"That pun was horrible. You're horrible for saying it." I groused at him. He chortled and quieted himself.

"Whatever the case, we're heading out, but unless Lucas shows up we haven't the proper bearings... well.. I know of the place just not where..."


(ooc: Maybe we'll NPC Lucas a while? Till Viking Sensei has time... so... when his kid turns five...)
"Now he's gone too far. NOONE ATTACKS AMERICA'S FOOD COURTS!" -Deadpool.
"Don't be so naive. I've got ulterior motives. MANY. Two, maybe three. Probably Four. I am one BIG ulterior motive." The Great Teacher, Onizuka Eikichi.
4uk4ata
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by 4uk4ata »

"I can't tell what it does, but it's there ... and no way in hell am I going to cross into it."

Kalin winced. "Bad thing, that. Bad, bad... But maybe we can do something about it." He had hoped the magical barrier would be like a fence low on the ground. He concentrated, sharpening his senses to the utmost... until he thought he felt something in the air as well. He wasn't sure if it was the magic "curtain" Layla spoke of, but he didn't want to risk it either. He turned down, to where the tracks disappeared, checking the ground for any sign of what might have happened when Oscar went through. He found nothing, however, neither mundane nor magical - no marks, no burns, no foot of newt (or was it tail of newt). It looked like the man had just kept on walking... only he didn't make a trace anymore.

The monk clicked his tongue a few times, as he sometimes did when thinking, and looked at Sharo. The dog was a little unnerved, he thought. "What is it, pal?" he asked him. Sharo replied he was just tired of mucking about - were they going somewhere now or no? He wanted to get some sleep. That makes two of us, Kalin thought. "We have something to do. Go now." The dog seemed to take advice to heart, ambled to the nearest vine, yawned and lied down.

"He's been up for a while. We shouldn't need his help right now." Kalin said, turning to Layla. She shrugged, but Kalin had noticed the look she gave him when he was talking to Sharo. Well, they probably didn't need him now - might as well let the old soul rest. "By the way, I was helping the caretakers carry some packages in the shed yesterday. We were passing near this vine there" he added, pointing at the route he and Sarya were going through yesterday. "Perhaps this thing won't be there?"

As they neared the vine he indicated, he half-saw, half-felt Layla tense. She didn't seem to be in any actual harm, though, so he tried to sense something as well. Between yesterday's kill-charms and this barrier, he was actually starting to learn how to pick up something like that...

Whatever it meant, it felt a bit differently there. He looked at the woman beside him, with a question written on his face.
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