Goriel and beyond, part 2

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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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Alberich »

"Who sent you here, and why?"

She kept her eyes down and her tone demure and respectful, but there was no tremble of fear as she gave answer. "My Lord Sevastien, sub-chief of the Yurkashev, sent me to you; so as to honor your chamber, and to bring to your night whatever comforts you desire. Each lord of Clan Cleiviein has been sent a getera. I am yours."

Maybe if she'd known more about Eli she would've shown some fear. But she didn't, so she didn't.
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Graybeard »

"What are you, Rose Cleiviein?"

Sister Rose mentally asked Luminosita's forgiveness for the whopper she was about to tell. Deception was part of the role she had to play, both in Special Ops and as clan chief's wife here. However, she was peculiarly reluctant to out-and-out lie. "Tell the truth, nothing but the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth" had been her mantra for much of her life in such situations. It had landed her in trouble from time to time, and as she thought about it, it wasn't really that much preferable from an ethical perspective (was it?). But it was the way she was.

She assumed a mildly hurt expresion. "I am merely the humble and obedient wife of a powerful man -- a very powerful man," she said. "Yes, I have some magical skills. But they shine by reflected light." She left it unsaid just what that meant.

It was at this point that Lillith chimed in, and Rose held her tongue during Lillith's explanation, which seemed to be, if not exactly satisfying to Marfa, at least enough to get her off a conversational track that Rose didn't want explored. Of course, it might be ... inconvenient to explain how the "shine by reflected light" part could be reconciled with the statement that she'd saved Argus' life with her skills, whatever they were. In any event, the Gorielian woman's countenance was clearing, even if there was still a bit of suspicion there.

Stifling a sigh of relief, Rose asked, "Are there others here who could benefit from my use of the skills my lord husband allows me?" That should be clear enough. She started to scan the room for more seriously injured feasters ...

... And then Lillith chundered.

"Excuse me, my priorities must be elsewhere for the moment," she said, and hurried to her "daughter's" side.

--------------

"Front coming in," Shorty pointed out to Rip. The big man had drawn the night shift for watch duty, relieving Rip, but Rip couldn't sleep yet, and he found his colleague entertaining company. (Well, at least compared to most of the people on the airship, not to mention the paying passengers.)

"I see it," Rip answered. Far off to the west, lightning flickered on the horizon. Well, that was inconvenient. He'd hoped that they could get out of town first thing in the morning -- Goriel just didn't feel like the kind of place to spend time -- but airships and thunderstorms didn't mix, and he knew from experience that there was a pretty good chance they were going to be grounded for another twenty-four hours or so. Still ... why not make the best of it? There might even be female "companionship" in town for the morning or afternoon, such as it was.

"I'm going to catch some shuteye," he told Shorty, "and maybe in the morning, after you get some too, we can head into town on a little liberty. What do you think?"

[OOC: This is intended as a way to let Rip and Shorty join the fun the following day, if applicable. Not essential, though. I think, as soon as Lillith's illness is resolved, we can all fast-forward to morning and get back on roughly the same time.]
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Alberich »

In fact, to Rose's benefit, there was no further need for her healing skills. The assassins had gone to a place far beyond the reach of any healing. The Yurkashevs had so quickly overwhelmed them - for all their toughness - that they'd received very few wounds in return. Those Rose hadn't handled had been well within Sevastien's capabilities.
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Jack Rothwell
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Jack Rothwell »

"Each lord of Clan Cleiviein has been sent a getera. I am yours."

Eli shook his head in negation at the woman's reply. A good, obedient little servant ready to do whatever he told her to... was Desiree doing something similar right now? The half-elf flushed as he contemplated the thought. He strode forward before he knew he meant to do it and cupped the woman's face with his hand, tilting it gently as if he were a patron examining a work of art he couldn't fully comprehend. She was pretty, she was human and she was a social doormat... Eli's feeling towards her ranged between pity and sadness, disgust and lust. His mood was such that he couldn't decide whether to turn her into an inferno or say fuck everything, kidnap her from her servitude, and get the hell out of the city.

One thing was for certain; he was exhausted. It had been a very long day.

"I'm sorely tired and would sleep." He told her. "Lay next to me if you would. Everything else can wait until morning."
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Sareth
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Sareth »

"Fishing?" Jamie grinned. "I suppose you can call it that. We're fishing for men! Well, a man. And we'll be using guns, so it's not so much fishing as hunting. So I guess you can't really call it fishing." She cocked her head to the side for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. Definitely. Anyway!" The crazed gunslinging girl wrapped an arm around Udo's shoulders and another around Tamina's waist. "There's some mines he may be hiding out in. We just need to go check out these mines. Oooooh! I bet they have explosives for breaking rocks! This'll be fun!" The girl's hips gave a peculiar squirm that wasn't particularly in keeping with her seeming masculine identity. "So, do we want to go right away, or do we want to find a room or two for the night?"

****

As Rip and Shorty were contemplating going ashore, Captain Rackham suddenly stuck his nose out the hatch. He sniffed then looked down the ladder he was on. "Storm coming. Tell the crew they can go ashore tomorrow."

Kattie looked up the ladder at him. "Which ones?"

"All of them, of course!"

"But who will man the watches until the storms blow over?"

"The crew, naturally."

"Naturally," Kattie sighed.

"Oh, and Kattie," Captain Rackham looked down more intently.

"Yessir?"

"You need a new bra. That one's too small. I can see it pinching your skin."

Katie tightened the lacing of her blouse. "Yes, sir."

After the Captain left, Katie shot Rip and Shorty a dirty look. "You saw nothing, right?"

Together, the two men nodded.

Katie nodded back, once. "Good. Feel free to go ashore tomorrow. I guess I'll take the watch. Off to bed with you two."

****

Lillith spat, then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry." She glanced towards Meera. "I am a terrible guest in your house." She turned to Rose. "Mother, I think it best if I retire for the night."

Brad, who was fluttering over Lillith a bit too concernedly for a proper Gorielan, nodded. "Yes, I think we should take her someplace quiet." He then glanced around and remembered his role. "She's so delicate, this daughter of yours."

The group quickly whisked away, guided by one of the lesser women of the household. The moment the servant had been shooed away and the three were "safe" behind closed doors, Lillith gave a bit of a warped laugh. "That was not the distraction I was looking for. Brad, can you bring me some water please?"
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Alberich »

"I'm sorely tired and would sleep. Lay next to me if you would. Everything else can wait until morning."

Her eyes were of a striking blue, her features sharp, her figure slim. As he tilted her head up, her eyes gave him an appraising sweep. Her face, like her tone, showed no defiance or hate - but no fear either. When he gave his instructions, she nodded. "Yes, my lord." She did not offer him a bath - his weariness was apparent in his body as in his words. That could wait. Instead, she busied herself with practiced fingers helping him remove whatever clothes and weapons he cared to remove, and hanging them in the right places. Once he was lying down, her own dress came off in a twinkling, and she was nestling beside him under the covers, sharing her warmth.

* * *

"So, do we want to go right away, or do we want to find a room or two for the night?"

Udo'd grown up urban, for all his rough adventures, and normally inclined to "rooms." (He'd never gone fishing, but with this pocketful of pics he'd be up for squid-jiggin' later.) However, today was different. While of course he feared nothing this city had to throw at them, Jamie's little display might draw some attention they didn't need. And if they got rooms in an inn...well, this place looked a little too flammable for that. Better to get out into the bush.

"Let's get going," he said, "And do some camping!"

Meantime, in an upstairs office in the Red Shell House of Comfort --
Spoiler: show
The fat female attendant ("Naughty Natassia") was talking to the male proprietor ("Naughty Nikita") of the Zukalin-owned establishment. In the privacy of this room, they shared a certain equality that would've looked quite wrong on the streets of Goriel. But then, they were brother and sister.

"They've gone, taken all their weapons too. Didn't hurt anyone."

He nodded. "Good. It might take us days to get a replacement. Our friends down south haven't been coming through lately."

"Tell me something, Nikita."

"What?"

"Yulia gave them the story you wanted, and added the window dressing about the scene downstairs. But how did you know this mystery man was at the rockshitters' hole? We haven't had any of them here in months."

"Know?" He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I don't! He could be there. He could not."

"Wha...?"

"Calm down, sister mine. It is taking initiative on behalf of our cousins. You said yourself you smelled trouble on the boy. The other man has elite foreign training in demolishment and silent kills. Even his body is a weapon. He told Gali if he even told her his experience, he would have to kill her!

"These are supreme agents of destruction. They carry weapons of forbidden great power. They are reckless and greedy. Where else to send them? With any luck they'll kill them all and collapse it, boom! Then the rockshitters are just another gaggle. And we can remind them where they came from! When we get their leaders - His Lordship may need our help. To get some whores' piss to drown them in!" He grinned evilly.

Realization dawned on her. "Now if another pair like them would come in, we could point them at the dogsuckers!"

"I heard a new one, sister. How do the Noble Men of Clan Dogsucker separate the men from the boys?"

"That's an old one, brother. With crowbars!"
[OOC: Finding out where the mine is is ridiculously simple - since the Gibazov have this museum with modelled maps and everything - that is, maps of roughly where it is, not maps of the inside. The museum doesn't get robbed 'til later, and even when it does, no one steals that.]

[OOC2: Once Rose and Argus betake themselves to bed - why don't we have a new thread? We've nearly 200 posts in this one and "the next day dawns" is a logical start for a new one. And I think there's plenty more to this adventure.]
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Graybeard
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Graybeard »

[OOC: I'm OK with a fast forward and a new thread, as soon as Eli, Desiree, Lillith, Argus, etc., are accounted for. A couple of last little things before everyone turns in:]

"I'm genuinely exhausted," Sister Rose yawned to Argus. It had been a long day, and that little bit of clandestine magic use had been tiring. "Excuse me for a moment."

She felt a powerful urge to wash her hands of the place where she now found herself -- literally. However, this didn't seem like the place for a Hygiene spell. Well, a plain old bath had something to be said for it, too. She called for water, thanked the servant girl politely (getting a startled look -- wasn't that basic courtesy rendered to the servants here?), and took a quick, precautionary scan for magic in the room before immersing herself in the bath (which was all she'd hoped it would be).

As she did so, she became aware of something she'd failed to check on earlier.

The idol in the center of the banquet hall didn't look like the artifacts that they'd found in Blaise's wake, to be sure. However, the fact that it just -- so -- happened -- to be there when sudden death overtook the assassins was ... interesting. Would it still be magical by light of day? She wished she'd had the presence of mind to check it for magic before leaving the hall. However, wishing wouldn't make it so.

She finished her ablutions and went to join her "husband" in bed, but it was a long time before sleep overtook her; there was thinking to be done here.

------------

The Hygiene spell hadn't made it as far as Goriel, nor had it made it to Refuge-Nouveau. That was unfortunate, because Therese, now installed in the safe house, was having a reaction very similar to Rose's, but without servants to draw the water for her.

The well water was cold, but a quick, subdued Flame Volley took care of that. (The Sisterhood had made sure that magic use within the house couldn't be seen from the outside, which was important for other reasons.) She settled into the bath, much as Rose would do an hour or two later ... and as she luxuriated, she came to a decision.

The sentry at the Duravsky compound had been well into a drug-induced, euphoric haze by the time she left. That allowed her to loiter a bit on the way home ... and as she did, she heard some things that ... concerned her.

This new, sex-goddess getera might have her hands full in this place, she thought. It was no place for a newcomer to Goriel. And if she correctly interpreted the whispers in the night, there was another woman in the place who was terrified of something as well. Alas, Clan Duravsky was off limits for the Sisterhood; they were simply too powerful, too influential, and a "rescue" from the Duravsky compound might call Gorielian attention to the fact that other women were disappearing from town under similar circumstances. As long as only the women of the minor clans were vanishing, the upper crust of the city could feign disinterest. That would disappear the moment one of their own went missing.

But by the Five Great Mothers, she couldn't let women die in there! There had to be some way, something she could do to get that new getera out of that awful place.

And if the "sex goddess" happened to have an interest in both sexes, well ... all the better. It had been a long time since Melusine had died, a long time since she'd been with a woman ...

She stepped out of the tub, dried herself off, said prayers to the Five Great Mothers, and was asleep within seconds ... but not before the seeds of a plan started to take root in her mind.
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Alberich
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Re: Goriel and beyond, part 2

Post by Alberich »

[OOC: Eli's back in bed, asleep, and accounted for; Desiree's ahead of you all; Lillith and Brad have also retired to their chamber; Argus - as far as I know, is in bed with Rose, but if he has any other acts to do, can do them here. So I'll start that next thread since Tim's got a reason to be the first out of bed.]
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