Farrel- Vengeance in the Mushrooms Woods

[Graybeard]

"Thank you," Elke/Maud said neutrally. "The morning sickness is just about gone. The last thing I want to do is get it back working again." She rolled her eyes. "As for -- payment for services, I'll have to check with my boss. That will take a little time, I hope you understand."

This gave her enough time to think. Rufus ... Latimer. In Rinkaiel. Which the Gewehr has been trying to expand into. I wonder ... A little chat with Annabelle, followed by a fact-finding mission, may be in order.

She busied herself with such breakfast as she thought she could hold down, while Anna-Lisa was waking a rather groggy Khoo.

[OOC: Sorry there's not much for you to work off of here. One little thing: As far as I can tell, Ester doesn't have a harbor and is not right on the seacoast. How were you planning for this merry crew to get to the Southern Continent? It may be time to start moving in that direction. Would the Eisenfaust know that the Silver Hands were involved in any of the business at the Lorrel harbor? I'm unclear on that. It's been a long time ...]

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC The group'll be heading to Lorrel first to get there, with the possibility of a side-trip or two in Port. The Eisenfaust might know of Silver Hand connections if they looked into Jade being hired by Logan's Black Guard. She kept a low profile but there's always a chance the Eisenfaust had plants within the organisation./OOC

Breakfast passed in relative quiet (except for Eve's occasion half-cut giggles) and the hands made their polite goodbye's to Elke soon after (OOC Unless she had anything else to add?/OOC). Afterwards, Eve had drawn the short straw in rousing their companions while Jade and Leo headed into town. Leo to secure a wagon for transportation back to the Port, Jade to retrieve and sell off her goods in the company of the completely-uncorrupt-no-honestly guardsmen of the settlement.

Eve made her unsteady way to Khoo and Anne-Lisa's room and gave a knock.

OOC That's all I've got atm./OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC: I finally went back and read enough of the earlier Lorrel threads to realize that Elke, being highly competent at her job, would make a certain discovery sooner or later. So let's make it sooner ... which will shape events in Lorrel and pososibly also the composition of the southbound party.]

"Yes?" a groggy-looking Khoo said as he opened the door. Then he saw who was there. "... Oh." Anna-Lisa was saying nothing, as she had moved to the loo as the knock on the door happened; she thought there just might be enough time before the Silver Hands departed for ... well, just say that she didn't want to be interrupted in the midst of casting a Contraception spell.

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

So that's who those two guys with the girls draped all over them were, a shaken Elke thought, causing her to unintentionally jerk her horse's reins hard enough not just to stop it but to get a startled whinny.

Having no packing up to do and no other business in town, she'd gotten a head start out of Ester on the way back to Lorrel. She still wasn't exactly sure who these odd people had been, either the obvious guild members(?) who had gone into the Mushroom Woods or the two out-of-place-looking couples who'd gone with them. Rufus ... Rufus Latimer ... from Rinkaiel. The slick-looking man had dropped that name and place with what appeared to be a straight face. (Of course, a good con man would have a straight face for such a thing.)

With a good lead, and being able (she thought) to move faster than the wagon, she thought she could risk a quick thaumatic conversation with her lieutenant Annabelle. No, Annabelle didn't know anything about a Rufus Latimer either. Maybe she (Elke) could use her suddenly thawing relations with that young Gewehr mother in Rinkaiel to try to find something out, after she'd made appreciative noises to her about the help from her pilot boyfriend/husband/whatever-he-was. She'd make that call in a more leisurely way once she was back in Lorrel. Who knows, she might even have some useful advice about morning sickness... Then, almost on a whim and expecting nothing, she'd asked whether the names "Khoo" or "Udo" meant anything to Annabelle ...

... And the casual, almost off-hand answer "Oh, you mean those crazy Tsuirakuans who helped take down the outfit cutting into our port business a couple of months back?" had caused the reins-pulling reaction.

Elke had got out of the Eisenfaust's "wet work" years earlier, and there'd never been enough of that for them to develop a Gewehr-Wraith-like cadre of quick-on-the-draw killers. However, her reflexes were still plenty good, which came in handy as she almost dropped the communications device as the horse pulled up. Fortunately, she caught it before it hit the ground and broke, and the resulting conversation with Annabelle, drawing on what "Smitty" and Doctor Rabbitfoot had learned as well as her sources at the harbor, told her what she'd been missing while she was ... away ... with John. By the time the two women were done talking, she was able to place almost all of the party who'd gone into the Mushroom Woods (excepting, of course, Fumiko); she had a good idea of the capabilities of the mercenaries' outfit, whatever they called themselves (Annabelle was set the "homework" of figuring that out); and she had some clearer ideas of what might be attracting the mercenaries to the Southern Continent. She also had lost most of her lead over the wagon.

Well, well, well. Guess I'd better try to be on that ship after all. Who knows, maybe a sea voyage will help with the morning sickness... She put the spurs to the horse, to build up her lead again.

[Jack Rothwell]

"Yes?"

We're catching a wagon back to the port in about an hour or so." Said Eve neutrally, willing herself not to look the student up and down in his bed gear. "Leo says he can get us a boat to the Southern continent if you and your beau still want to go. I hear it's a pretty romantic destination!"

The last line was a call to Anna-Lisa. If there was a pot to stir, Eve couldn't resist turning the spoon.

……………………

"Jasmine! Glad you could make it!"

"Of course." Jade muttered, immediately wanting to put a fist into Tom Odd's shit-eating grin. The man was stood holding a cup of coffee in the barracks and leaning against a beam in a pose too contrived to be casual. "I believe you said I could unload my merchandise at Scor'z, was it? My companions are eager to get on our way and the early bird gets the worm, as they say."

"They do. Although the second mouse gets the cheese." Tom replied. "And I believe you were promised an escort? Saddle up gentlemen."

The walk to the market felt like a trip to the gallows for the blacksmith. Flanked by hungover miltia and led by the infuriatingly perky Captain was a reminder of the nightmare of a time she'd had since returning to the dead town. They approached the stall attended by a man who looked better suited to being a butcher than a weapon's tradesman, who looked disinterestedly at the group.

"Mornin' Tom."

"Morning Scor'z. How's business?"

"A ray of sunshine on a rainy day. Who's this?"

"You're in luck! We just happen to have found a prospective supplier for you."

"About time." Scor'z actually perked up a little at this. "Flint's been taking all my business for Gods know how long."

Jade sighed, and reached into her pack.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Your call as to how to handle what Elke is going to be doing in Lorrel, whether here or in Background Noise. I think here would be OK; it's not like there's an overabundance of traffic. But up to you. Meanwhile, back in the boudoir ...]

"Erm, uh, okay," Khoo mumbled. "I'll tell Anna-Lisa when she gets out of --"

Needless to say, he didn't get to finish the sentence.

"SQUEEE!" Anna-Lisa burst from the bathroom, wearing her best traveling outfit, or so it seemed. In fact, Khoo knew that this was an Illusion spell. There were no clothes in the bathroom, and she'd gone into it stark naked. He tried to maneuver so as to block the view of the pile of clothes she'd left strewn around the bed.

"A sea voyage," Anna-Lisa enthused. "This is gonna be so much FUNNNN..."

"Uh, sweetheart, this is going to be a working trip," Khoo demurred; the situation was beginning to wake him up. "We can be ready in half an hour, if you're --"

"An hour and a half!" Anna-Lisa corrected him, and then: "Jackrabbit," she snickered in his ear, leaving no doubt as to how she was planning to spend the hour thus gained.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, a little Elke "background noise" for you to work with when you come up for air. I think we'd decided on the who and the where, and sort of the why ... but we hadn't decided on the how. Needless to say, the ship being described here need not be anything like what it appears to be ... BTW, I think the Volkanenborg craziness started before you came along, so if you get a spare hour or two, you might start here and give it a read, for the full version of why the Mesuinu name means strange and weird things to Elke -- things that she will never share with a subordinate. This earlier sequence might also be helpful as background. So anyway ...]

"A cruise ship" Elke exclaimed incredulously. "You're telling me the next ship bound out of Lorrel for the Southern Continent is a cruise ship?"

Annabelle held her ground. "That's what I said," she said calmly; she knew Elke, unlike certain others in her position, wasn't going to fire her (or worse) for giving strange news. "Apparently some Tsuirakuan outfit thinks there's a market among high-rolling Tsuirakuans for cruises to strange and exotic destinations." She snorted. "Meaning colorfully backward ones."

"You checked out the outfit?" Elke was suspicious.

"Yeah. New startup, spinoff from something called Mesuinu Enterprises. It all -- huh?"

"I know Mesuinu Enterprises," Elke said, feeling for once that the queasiness in her stomach was due to her memory of a certain conference, rather than morning sickness. "Had some dealings with them once, at an amusement park up north that they own. Crazy as bedbugs, but I'll give 'em this: they know how to make money off entertaining Tsuirakuans."

"I wonder," Annabelle mused, sipping at a glass of wine (mildly annoying Elke, who was never much of a drinker and was completely on the wagon until the baby came, but she was getting used to that). "The ship is supposed to hold 300 passengers or so, but I'd be surprised if as many as fifty got off when they made port. I had Chet keep an eye on 'em. The ones that got off did all the things tourists are supposed to do, but he says a bunch more just cowered on the ship as though they were afraid of catching the plague. Anyway, he says not much more than half full, which is not a way to run a cruise line."

Elke chuckled. "So maybe they'd be willing to take another half dozen passengers down south and back? Including myself to keep an eye on what they're up to?" She patted her incipient baby bump. "I'm about over the pukes from this little guy, so dealing with seasickness should be a snap ... Hey, did you hear that? Sounded like a distant scream."

"I didn't hear a thing."

"Well, maybe I was imagining it," Elke snickered again. "Thinking about Saiko Mesuinu does that to people. Anyway, let's start planning this ..."

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

Elke's ears were good, but not good enough to hear all the way up to Rinkaiel, where Layla had just produced a "SQUEEEEEEE!" at the sight of the ring Ace had just given her, the ring that had been his real motivation for the airship trip that left him unexpectedly tangled up with the Silver Hands.

[Edit: minor retcon, as I got the Mountain of Madness "activities" mildly confused. It doesn't change anything.]

[Jack Rothwell]

The trip to Scor'z place of business had been unpleasant the same way that an ant under a magnifying glass felt hot on a sunny day. Jade had managed to stick to her guns (metaphorically) and negotiated a decent price for the odds and ends she'd carried into town with her. She'd even managed to convince the guardsmen to let her keep the golem blade; pleading that it a commission for a special client that it wasn't worth her job to cross. After saying a firm goodbye and a very quiet 'fuck you' to the ramshackle outfit she returned to the tavern to catch up with her comrades.

Eve was where she left her. The silver hand sat with a pack of cards spread out on the table and playing cups; a game Jade had never been able to master.

"Where's Leo?"

"Out. Arranging our transportation." Eve replied, then muttering. "I need to go back to using marked cards."

OOC Finally back! And leaving it ambiguous as to where the rest of the party is. Good to be back in touch Grey ./OOC

[Graybeard]

[OOC: So is it OK with you if we proceed using this "cruise ship"? It can be outfitted, crewed, and filled with passengers however you wish, consistent with the fact that it's (1) from Mesuinu Enterprises and (2) absolutely reeking of weird, flamboyant magic. Of course, if you'd rather find another vessel for the trip to the Southern Continent, strange coincidences can be arranged ... Incidentally, feel free to let the "religious fanatic" be Leo in disguise, if it fits your needs.]

A haggard-looking Khoo, and a radiant Anna-Lisa, emerged from their room while Jade was conducting her business, and headed for the harbor district.

With no encounters en route, save one with a religious fanatic wielding a holy symbol best left to the imagination, they arrived in plenty of time to get a good eyeful of the cruise ship ... and the Mesuinu insignia on its stacks. As one might expect, this produced strong, and different, reactions from the two Tsuirakuans. Khoo simply facepalmed and emitted a groan. "Mesuinus ... I should have guessed..."

Anna-Lisa's reaction, predictably, was much more positive; she'd worked for Saiko Mesuinu, after all. "OOOOooooo! This is our kind of ship, sweetheart! You wait here and I'll be right back." Before Khoo could stop her in the usual way (i.e., with a smooch), she dashed off in the direction of what looked like the ship's purser.

Khoo was scanning the skies, looking for a small airship that he could coax down with his aerial magic and use to escape what seemed to be about to happen, when Anna-Lisa returned, grinning from ear to ear and clutching a sheaf of travel runes. "I knew it!" she announced. "Takashi, he's the steward, he's an old friend from when I interned for the Mesuinus, great guy, he and I used to, maybe I shouldn't talk about the thing with the paper dragons, but one night ..."

Khoo had pulled himself together enough to intervene with a kiss and clench this time. When this dissipated, Anna-Lisa had pulled herself together, just slightly. "So I scored enough tickets for our friends in the Silver Hands to come along! And ..." She waved one particularly garish rune triumphantly. "We got the honeymoon suite!"

Khoo gave up looking for an airship; it was too late.

-*-*-

The line about "our friends in the Silver Hands" was not lost on Elke, eavesdropping a discreet distance away via a not-so-discreet snooping device she'd acquired for this trip.

[Jack Rothwell]

OOC Is this post set after the group arrive in Port Lorrel? Ester isn't next to the sea. Leo would be travelling with the group too. I had intended to have Leo meet up with Captain Moriarty (remember him?) but I might just work that in to the airship trip.

Just checking before I post./OOC

[Graybeard]

OOC: It's happening in Lorrel, and I would presume the Silver Hands have made it there, since they got out before Khoo and Anna-Lisa did. (Heh. Khoo, at least, was definitely "in" rather than "out" for much of that time. But let's not go there.) Let the timing work however you want it to. A meet-up with Captain Moriarty (no, I did not remember him) would be just fine; he might have ... opinions ... about a Mesuinu cruise ship (ocean-going, not an airship). Since it just reached port an hour or two before Khoo and Anna-Lisa got there, it wouldn't be due to set sail again for several hours or even overnight, so there's plenty of time for our heroes to get into trouble in town. Elke will be keeping a low profile, using the time to check in on Eisenfaust business in town since it's their home turf. So go for it, in whatever way fits your plan.