Rinkaiel

[koshkoo]

Rice took count of the fresh orders she was getting, continuously thanking her customers for each order, "Give ten... no five minute..." The chef bows apologetically, not expecting her pre-made strips to run out so fast.

She turns to her right, which was a comfortably laid out table of various ingredients and racks with urns and containers. trips of rat's meat that sliced and marinated in pool of dark brown sauce were fished out one by one, each strip roughly an inch wide, one centimeter thick, and the length varies. Two strips were skewer into one bamboo skewer if it were too short in a zig zag pattern along the meat strips; with a twist of her wrist she spins the meat into a spiral helix, easily skewering over ten of them within a minute.

The skewers were then peppered with corn flour on a tray, and holding the sticks of the newly prepared skewers, she turn right again facing now her cooking area. A slanting table which seems to be molded out of clay to make tough ceramic, a total of 6 rings with stands, very possibly her stoves. On one of them were a huge two feet wide Wok that has a lid on it, removing the lid releases a puff of steam, and the air blurs with the rising heat.

Rice dips the skewers into the hot boiling oil, seeming unaffected with the violent bubbling and cracking of moist substance added into oil. A good minute and she raises the strips which are now golden brown and dripping with hot oil. She fans them with her free hand a few times before sticking them onto the ball of clay on the counter.

She continues to make and serve her snacks out, repeating to every of her customer a broad grin and a "Thank you... do come back, Rice make different later." So how long would later be anyway...

[Sareth]

"Moooooooooooom!" Layla said, blushing red as a beet (although with a big smile on her face), and exactly echoing another mother-daughter conversation that was going on in the inn at that very moment.

"MooooooooooOOOOOOOOOM!"

"What?" Jasmine asked, smiling broadly. "Don't tell me you'd rather have that other young fellow with you this evening? Really, Jamie, you need to settle with a good man, not dally with several."

"Moooooooo-o-o-ommmmmm..." Jamie growled.

"Oh please don't tell me you had an eye for that girl at the rat stand? I admit, she made even rat taste good, and we might just want to hire her for as the cook for this boat you're buying, but Jamie, you just *CAN'T* make babies with her."

"MOTHER!" Jamie exclaimed. "This is hardly the time for you trying to trick me into getting knocked up by some necromancer! There's people after me who are going to know we're here an..."

Jasmine cut her off. "Peace, child! I'm no simpleton, no matter what you think." She looked somber. "What do you think is going to happen when they bust in the place coming to get you?"

"A fight..." Jamie sulked.

"And who will be involved?"

"Anyone in the room with me."

"And if Nera is in your room?"

"She could get involved."

"And between Marcus and I, who can back you up better?"

"Him."

Jasmine pushed Jamie through the door, and started closing it behind her, then paused. "Oh, and if anything *does* happen... do use protection dear."

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

[Graybeard]

Included in the line of passersby queuing up at the lunch wagon was one man who didn't look Farrelian at all. He waited politely while Rice served the other customers, placed his own order -- "One meat stick, please" -- with a bow ... and as soon as he was convinced nobody was watching, muttered a brief spell.

"There, we can talk now," he said in the exact dialect that Rice herself had used from childhood. "I have put on Translation effects. We should be able to understand each other perfectly, and nobody else will be able to understand us -- unless they're from the same small town as you are." He named the town, fully capturing Rice's attention.

Nodding and making another, much more limited bow, he continued, "Now that we are, shall we say, in a position to communicate, there is a business proposition I wish to discuss with you..."

[koshkoo]

Rice almost immediately froze on the spot. She turns around with her eyes wide open in shock.

"You... who? How do you know my language? I have traveled nearly ten winters and I have yet to come by someone who could understand me... " Rice slaps her right hand over her mouth obviously shaken, memories of all those years reddens her eyes, she was obviously quite shaken.

Rice took a few deep breaths trying to calm down, leaning forward over the counter trying to get a better look at the man that was obviously speaking her tongue. ~No he doesn't look anything like my people... does he?~ she thought.

"Is this some sort of trick sir?" She questions the man, obviously weary as she backs up into her kitchen, "What business are you talking about? You want me to cook?"

[Graybeard]

The man gave Rice a direct, almost reptilian look. "Miss, you are already cooking. Our own 'business' allows, indeed requires, that you continue to do so. We will be happy to assist you in maintaining your own fine enterprise, with ingredients from the West that are -- difficult to obtain in this country. We ask only one service in return." He produced a business card.

"When you serve your excellent cuisine to anyone coming from the Tsuiraku-town district of this city, we humbly request that you report this fact via the contact information on this card. It would be particularly helpful, and shall we say, profitable, if you could provide the names of the Tsuirakuans you serve. We have an interest in this information that need not concern you, and I assure you that you will be compensated very well for your assistance. Needless to say, we also request that you not divulge this conversation to any of your other customers or colleagues. To do so might have ... unfortunate consequences." The flat, reptilian stare took on some of the aspect of a lizard contemplating a fly.

The man took a bite of his meat stick. "This is truly excellent, miss. I look forward to doing business with you in the future." He left a coin in a stunningly large denomination on the counter, turned on his heel, and walked away.

[koshkoo]

A chill shot up Rice's spine upon the reptilian gaze from that enigmatic man that has approached her. After taking the business card she studied it for a while and before she could stop the man from waltzing off....

"ah... wait...." she raises her voice with tails off with " What is a Tsuisakuan...." she mummers in her own tongue.

Rice frowns turning the business card a few times, looking intensely at the letters written on it thinking ~ meh~ I can't read this... how do you use this piece of paper...~

In was true to Rice's eyes everyone looked foreign to her, it was true she had served many and had traveled quite many places, but her poor vocabulary made it almost impossible to chat to people beyond the basics of everyday life.

~Ingredients from the west... where is west though, should be mighty interesting to try that~ she was in fact interested though she find it nearly impossible to dismiss the idea of getting her mittens on more ingredients to make wonderful food from. The chef didn't take long to find herself once again busy in her kitchen, keeping the card under one of the ingredient urn. ~Perhaps I should ask someone about this card~ she frowns remembering the fair warning from the man and his cold gaze which sends another chill up her spine. ~Maybe not....~

((OCC: that's right, she can't read nor write save for her own tongue, so basically I could assume all the players had left her wagon by now?))

[AdamZero]

(yeah, I think we're all gone now)

Marcus had kept quiet from the walk back to his room, or one of them at the inn, and had taken to the balcony, moving a chair onto it to read a novel while the ladies 'J' argued about something, he wasn't paying attention anymore. Aiyee was reclining in a comfy chair the the neighboring balcony, observing the sunset with mild interest.

He turned a page as a door shut, turning his head he say Jamie standing there looking agitated and severely 'ruffled'.

"Lost another one, eh Chief?" Boris laughed. Marcus heard the smack of leather on bone and watched the boot land next to his feet while Boris's head rolled into a corner of the room.

[Blackmail]

"You don't look like you're from around here. New in town?"

"Uh...Yeah." Zander arched an eyebrow at the man. He'd always disliked people who start random conversations. Usually because it was often when he really didn't want to talk. Being an assassin/criminal-for-hire, that particular mood found him quite a lot. "I just got in this morning. Very... interesting city, compared to some of the places around here." He didn't comment any more than that, simply standing there eating his meat sti-- Well that wasn't worded very well at all...

On the way back to the inn he kept quiet as well, hoping to avoid the skeptical eyes of any of Jamie's other comrades. He just wanted to do his job. That is, he was awaiting nightfall so that he could bust some Gewehr heads. Trailing those two thugs for a good portion of time had actually gotten him fairly eager to thwart their schemes, if only just because they were kind of annoying. That and he hadn't had any real action since... well, since his last job for the circus that he would rather not go into. Speaking of which, he hoped they hadn't sent anyone after him... That was another possible reason he might be glad for his association with the Eisenfaust.

He still hadn't found that damn Seeadler.

[Graybeard]

[OOC:

Aiyee was reclining in a comfy chair the the neighboring balcony, observing the sunset with mild interest.

Uh, I don't think it's quite sunset yet. The action at Rice's wagon was for lunch, early afternoon or something like that. Or did you intend that things had gotten quiet for the rest of the afternoon? Anyway:]

Joe had the hack all ready to go get Ace when something occurred to him. The man probably hadn't had breakfast, either. (Like most of the Gewehr, Joe had never been aboard the airship and didn't know about its galley.) He would probably be pretty hungry by now. This is a guy I want to stay on the good side of. Let's grab him an extra meat stick. He paused in his preparations and made his way back to Rice's operation.

The line had dissipated, and the proprietess was standing alone, a look of perplexity on her face. "Looks like you've been busy," Joe smiled. "Can I get another meat stick?" He was waiting for an answer -- the wheels were obviously turning inside her head -- when his gaze fell on a business card lying on the counter.

"Well, look here," he said. "A card from the Tsuirakuan consulate. Did you make an order for them? Good for you!"

---------

Elsewhere, plans were being made, of a sort.

"So how we gonna do this?" Weed asked as he and Fritz walked back to the flat, believing (incorrectly) that the coast was clear.

Fritz snorted. "We get into her room and blow her away. It ain't airship science. Even a numbskull like you should figger that out."

Weed wasn't so sure. "Yeah, but which room? We don't know what room she's in."

That pulled Fritz up short. "Shaddup, been thinkin' 'bout that," he said, to cover for the fact that he really hadn't thought of it at all. Then the light dawned in his eyes. "I know. We're gonna pretend to be mainy -- mainty -- them guys what go in an' fix stuff. We go door t' door sayin' we're lookin' for a water leak. We find the right room, an' bang."

"That oughta work," Weed allowed, as oblivious as Fritz to the fact that that would give the entire inn a make on them, unless Jamie was in the first room they tried. They continued to the flat.

[koshkoo]

(OCC: mid afternoon, good now I get the grasp of time as well, playing a language handicap character isn't easy... but still very fun）

RIce looks a Joe with a dumbfolded look, as if trying to make sense of his query....

It took a while before the knot on between her brows loosen up, and the 'customer is god' smile returns to her face. Something in her little wheel between her ears seem to have clicked.

"Aiya, sorry sir... but RIce no more meat sticks...." she bows her head in apology.

"RIce make special for sir, if sir answer Rice questions..." she was confident enough her food made it worthwhile to get some answers on her side of things.

The chef leans forward with her elbows resting on the counter looking down at Joe with beaming eyes, hoping the man could answer her questions when it does seems her potential customer could satisfy her beyond merely buying food from her... information she could certainly use since it seems the man understood that 'piece of paper' much better than she did.