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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Sareth
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Sareth »

"Yeah," I replied. "We are. But I'm not the one who really knows the detail on just where it needs to go. You'd need to talk to Lucas about that. I'm just the gun bunny." I smiled. "What's the price for one of these tubs, anyway?"
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

"What's the price for one of these tubs, anyway?"

"Who is this Lucas?" Gryffyd asked. "He is your ... the father of your child?" Jamie's body language left very little doubt that he'd blown that one, so he hastily backpedaled. "Well, no concern of ours, we care about your well-being, but your relationships are your business. As for your question, the answer of course depends on the size of the 'tub,' to use your inelegant phrase. We build ships ranging from small cutters that two men can operate, all the way to the ship you saw. However, they are expensive to buy." He named a price that caused Jamie to blanch. "We would rather lease you a vessel with crew, perhaps a small bark with a crew of six plus yourselves. We would of course require a share of any ... prize ... you took, but I think you would find our base rates quite reasonable."

As Gryffyd waited for a response, he thought but did not say, At least the rates are reasonable when they're subsidized by Elke, Peter and so on, and blue hells, I'd pitch in on it myself just to save us the hassle of keeping an eye on you...

-------

"You appear to have a very unusual possible specialization indeed," Kinabalu told Layla. "You have exceptional raw talent in kinesthetic, or proprioceptive, magic. In layman's terms, that is magic associated with one's living body."

Layla perked up her ears at that. If that means what I think it means ... well, let's find out. "I'm not sure I understand," she said. "I thought you said that I had only basic potential in life magic, stuff for doing Healing, all that. What's the difference?"

The Tsuirakuan's facial expression started to suggest disappointment that Layla would have such an inability to answer her own question; any ten-year-old candidate for Sashi Mu could have told her the difference. He quickly caught himself, however, as he remembered who he was dealing with. "There is a proverb of our people," he said. "It doesn't translate well into your language, but it basically says the difference between the two is the difference between the wine and the bottle. Life force is the wine, and life magic affects that life force, shaping it to do your will -- to heal the body, to make minor changes in the body that the layman calls 'polymorphing,' to affect the mind, that kind of thing. The body is the bottle, and kinesthetic magic allows you to do things with the body itself -- climb like a monkey, move as silently as a cat. Few have that skill." He didn't add that few Tsuirakuans outside the military cared about it; kinesthetic magic didn't have the social status of life magic. But what would a Farrelite know of such things?

Few Tsuirakuans have it, Layla thought to herself. But I'd bet the vineyard that damn near all Wraiths do; it's what keeps us alive. Sounds like Plato was right ... and now I see why they want me here doing this. "Tell me more," she said.
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AdamZero
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by AdamZero »

Nera had taken to sleeping while in my arms, and seemed every bit the quiet little angel Jasmine seemed to wish her daughter would be. Funny thing that. I didn't doubt she'd be a bawling ball of energy after she'd rested up, but that was for later. I shifted her a bit, and rested her in the carrier sling I'd made a while back. Her head rested against my chest, and she ... she was snoring....

I didn't think babies could snore....

I relaxed my mind and let my awareness spread out a bit. I could feel the sailors, and for the most part there was nothing unusual about them.

Except that some of them felt almost exactly like the sort of persons on the sunken sinker ship. Not only that, but they were all over the place, though the difference between them and the regular sailors seemed to increase the closer to the sea they were.

Some of them were even underwater......

"Ri~ght"
"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.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: Temporizing while a question gets answered offline ... Adam, we really need to talk...]

The watcher was being watched.

"That's the guy what was with our mark," Fritz said as he watched Marcus (and Nera) from his vantage point atop a warehouse. It wasn't great concealment, and the Seeadler might do bad things to them if they were caught there, but it would have to do. "Must be their kid with 'im."

"I didn't know she had a kid," Weed replied. "Got any problems with this?"

"Naw, there are orphanages," Fritz sneered; he'd grown up in one, after all. "I dunno whether we're suppose to hit the guy, though. Usually when we got a job, they get pissy if we hit anybody but the mark."

"So where'd his bitch go?"

"I dunno. We gonna wait here till they get back together?"

Weed applied his limited intellect to the problem, made a decision. "We better not. The fish could find out any time we're here, and then we're screwed. We certainly ain't gonna hit her while we're in the fishes' turf. That'd be bad. We better move the stakeout to somewhere th' fish don't control. Big thing is, though, we know they're here and we can watch 'em till we get our chance." The two men stealthily slithered off the rooftop, unaware that they themselves were being watched.
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Sareth
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Sareth »

"A smaller boat? Part of the loot if we hit a place?"

I thought about that. While letting go any share of the loot rankled at first, it did have certain virtues. First, it got us there quick and easy. Second it added additional bodies to shoot from behind if needed. And third... Third, I couldn't exactly haul around much bulky stuff anyway. There was only so much room in my pack. I'd just have to make sure I got to pick the easily portables before they got to selecting loot.

"Yeah, we can do that. You know where we're headed, and what we mean to do, right? Are you guys alright with the risk?"
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4uk4ata
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by 4uk4ata »

Aaaaa-aa-aa-arrrgh!

And that is all that passes through my mind for what seems like an eternity. To say I feel pain would be more than understatement, it would be a travesty. Then, all fades to black.

I regain consciousness in a while, but even as I open my eyes my vision is blurry. What in Luminosita's name happened to me? One moment I was crouching down to see something near the plank, the next... did something jump at me from inside? It wasn't a snake, or at least a regular one - even if both me and Sharo could not smell it, I am fast enough to at least see it, and probably jump back. It was something shimmering... sparkling. And it hurt, more than any beating I had ever survived, more than any injury, more than anything I thought possible. It was the kind of pain that could kill an ordinary man. It could kill me, too - but apparently it was not Luminosita's will that I die this day. It seems He has something for me to do yet.

I try to raise myself, but my hands are too weak and I fall back on my back, gasping for air. I turn towards the fence, and see a small round stone with strange shimmering etchings on it, hidden under the plank I had tried to move. It looks strange... I concentrate and my senses sharpen until I hear a slight hum and smell something dry, acrid and unfortunately familiar. Magic. Filthy, vile magic. The kind that kills. The air around the stone is heavy with it, so it must be almost spent now. I pick up the stone and put it in a pocket as I manage to prop myself into a sitting position.

Sharo nuzzles me, and I pat my friend as I look towards the house and growl, and he growls with me. I was almost killed, and someone will regret that. I think I know who that someone will be.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

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"Yeah, we can do that. You know where we're headed, and what we mean to do, right? Are you guys alright with the risk?"

Not really, Gryffyd reflected. What I'd really like to do is simply lock you up in a cage until your crazy friends have gone off and had their adventure -- but then we wouldn't learn what we want to know. "We will take certain risk-mitigation steps," he replied. "We would also like to have some manner of security, a damage deposit, if you will. We understand that you are traveling with a very unusual golem, a golem with blue skin and ... remarkable ... capabilities. Perhaps you could leave her with us."

--------

"There is not much to tell," Kinabalu said. "We will work with the specialty, using it as the focal point to teach you general principles of magic. Otherwise, your skills are quite normal and routine. You could learn basic evocation, basic attack and defense --" Layla's ears perked up again at that -- "basic transmutation, basic most everything. There is one other area where you have at least the rudiments of a strength that might be interesting."

"What's that?" Layla asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Mind magic."

--------

"Stay here," Joe said, leaving Faye and Zachary in the hack, as he went dashing toward the scream, which he could see now had come from Kalin.
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Sareth
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Sareth »

"Blue ski... Ayiee?"

This guy was kidding, right? I mean, sure some people might consider Ayiee nothing more than a commodity or gadget. But after all the time I'd been traveling with her I knew she was much more than that. I wasn't sure whether she was alive or not, but she was darned close if she wasn't. She was far more than just a gadget. Even if she wasn't alive, she was worth far more than a bath tub with sails.

"Out of the question," I replied. "She's not mine to offer as a hostage." I emphasized the word. "There's no way I could get away with it."

I could feel my smile distort my face. I couldn't help it. After all, what I said next...'

"My mother, on the other hand..."
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

OOC, and having nothing whatever to do with the game:
AdamZero wrote:Nera had taken to sleeping while in my arms, and seemed every bit the quiet little angel Jasmine seemed to wish her daughter would be. Funny thing that. I didn't doubt she'd be a bawling ball of energy after she'd rested up, but that was for later. I shifted her a bit, and rested her in the carrier sling I'd made a while back. Her head rested against my chest, and she ... she was snoring....

I didn't think babies could snore....
Such a memory this brings back. My older son snored like a freight train from about the same age as Nera is, and quite possibly considerably younger. We could hear him all over the house. It caused my wife a great deal of consternation when she brought our younger son home, because from birth, he slept like the dead, and she constantly worried that he was dead ... which we sure never had to worry about with his big brother.

All of which is really intended to tee up one question that does pertain to the game: anybody know whether Viking-Sensei is a daddy yet? It oughta be about that time, shouldn't it? Please keep us posted.

More in-universe stuff on the Seeadler encounters when I get home from work.
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Graybeard
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Re: Rinkaiel

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: OK, so back to story...]

"Hostage? Oh, you misunderstand me," Gryffyd said, spreading webbed hands. "When I say 'security deposit,' I simply mean something of value to compensate us if some misfortune happens and you and the ship don't make it back. Something saleable, you see." He swam to the edge of the pool-office and clambered out, dried himself. Jamie noted that the man's feet were also webbed, but apart from that, he appeared human, more or less. He was probably the first man she'd ever dealt with whose office attire was a swimsuit, though.

"Seen from that perspective, I'm not sure your mother would constitute a satisfactory deposit," he continued. "Rumors to the contrary, we don't engage in slave trade, not that such a sweet, ... older ... woman would ever be under consideration for such a thing." He started to say something else, but one of the aides who'd conducted Jamie to the office came over to whisper in his ear. Jamie couldn't hear most of the speech, but the word "hot" was whispered a little louder than the rest.

An evil grin spread across Gryffyd's face, reaching not just from ear to ear but gill to gill. "I seeee..."
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