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Post by Celestial on Jun 20, 2010 15:55:22 GMT -5
Ok, let's see how well this takes off.
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Celestial sat in her chair in front of a desk, somewhere in Mage Manor with her hands clasped in front of her in a suitably leader-like fashion. She had not been the most proactive leader that the Mages have had and besides managing the day-to-day little things, she had not done many radical things since the Underdeep had been repelled, three months ago.
The Underdeep. Despite herself, the dragon mage shivered. She still had nightmares about the time it posessed her, many of them ending with her waking up trying to scream. Thank goodness that the Manor had sound-proof walls around the rooms.
Celestial looked at the paperwork in front of her, trying not to think about that. The Knights needed their alliance finalised, as soon as the envoy arrived. She had already picked one and felt she could trust him although he was fairly new. He was on his way. The dragon mage felt she could trust him. But she wasn't so sure if the Knights would be enough in terms of allies. The Mages were powerful and with the Knights they had might, a seemingly unstoppable combination but they were still just a small kingdom in a big world. A big, dangerous world which seemed to be in danger of ending every year.
One ally was not enough. They needed more. And they needed one who could provide both magic and might.
Spacefleet would not ally with them, not in a million years. While their new commander was more reasonable than the old, Celestial suspected they would keep themselves to themselves. The Pirates only got lucky because the two leaders were..."close."
So if she had to stick to that category, it seemed that Brassport was the only place left. They had alchemists but they also had plenty of brute strength.
The dragon mage winced, remembering Brassport and their not-so-good terms, especially since it was her who had done some rather widespread damage to the place. But perhaps, if they showed that they meant no harm then Brasport would warm up to them. If not, the Knight/Mage alliance would get its baptism by fire.
Celestial took a sheet of parchment paper and began writing on it before she stopped. Perhaps it would be better if she went to the Steampunk guild herself to negotiate there. If they took her prisoner, she wouldn't play helpless victim and get out easily. If they agreed to negotiate then coming in person wouldn't only cut out the middle man but show that she wanted some kind of alliance.
Plus it would provide some interesting fuel for a fire if she went back.
Overlord?
Yes?
Stay here. I'm-
Going to go to Brassport. Reckless.
I know but we haven't had an adventure for a while, no? If something happens, tell them. I'll get back as soon as possible. Prepare for the worst.
Once again, reckless. But hey, like I'm going to try and stop you. Good luck, you moron.
Love you too.
The dragon mage went over to the window, opened it and jumped out, flapping her wings for a few moments before shapeshifting. She could still remember the path to Brassport, despite the Underdeep posessing her at the time. She turned on the point of her wing and headed south-east.
It took a few hours for her to get there. Celestial turned back into a human as she neared the gates and landed in front of the great city. Smoke poured out from all the many chimneys and she could smell on the wind the definite presence of the many elements used and created in alchemy. There was strength and magic, which was really just a glorified science, in this place.
She landed in front of the gates and faced the slightly bemused guardsman, who wasn't really sure what to think of the dragon-winged, dragon-eyed woman who had just landed in front of him.
"Hello. I am Celestial, Archmage of the Mage Guild and I have one simple, if cliche, request: take me to your leader" she said to him, her tone sounding fairly commanding.
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Beyond the fourth wall, a figure clad in white laughed. She knew that Celestial was just waiting for an occasion to say that.
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Elsewhere, outside Castle Kestrel, an elf with his eyes closed and dressed in a coat that looked like it had been overloaded with as many patterns as humanely possible walked across the drawbridge and bowed to the guardsman, curtly and quickly.
"Inform Lady Shade that the envoy from Mage Manor, Clerin Arundel, has arrived,"
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Post by Jina on Jun 20, 2010 17:54:27 GMT -5
Owen sat back in his throne. Well, he called it a throne, it was really just a regular chair that happened to be in the Mayor's office.
At the time Brassport had been dragged out of Brigaia, the previous Mayor had been in the palace, and was left behind. Once the whole city had calmed down after the event, the search for a new Mayor had begun. Owen had put his name forward almost as soon as he had come back from Tabloid Town, and won, somehow. He thought it had to do mostly with his visit to the outside world.
His first action as Mayor had been to sack the leader of Brassport's militia, due to the fact that Brassport had not been placed under martial law. So far, he hadn't picked a replacement, and was finding that all of the candidates were being very helpful. Then, he had overseen various jobs, mostly the repairs to the city. They were nearly done, although you could still see a few buildings around the place with scaffolding around them.
Now, though, he had some spare time.
---
"Hello. I am Celestial, Archmage of the Mage Guild and I have one simple, if cliche, request: take me to your leader"
The guard stared blankly at Celestial. Wasn't she the one that...? "Erm. Right. You'll have to stay here a minute, let me go talk to my boss..."
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Post by Ikkin on Jun 20, 2010 20:26:01 GMT -5
Ikkin stood in the courtyard of Mage Manor, facing a stone gargoyle holding a large stone sword. It moved back and forth on the ground idly, waiting for her to instruct it.
“Rocky, strike to the head,” she commanded, placing her hand on the handle of her own sword as she waited for its attack. Normally, “Rocky” stood outside of the Manor, protecting it against intruders, but Ikkin had recently realized that the stone gargoyles made for decent training partners for her to practice her magically-enhanced swordsmanship against. At the very least, they were far more resistant to a flaming sword across the chest than a human partner would be.
Rocky slowly moved in on Ikkin with its sword raised, giving no indication of when he was going to attack. Suddenly, it struck – and, in a flash, Ikkin's own sword stopped its sword in the air, leaving a flaming trail behind it that probably would have burned Rocky if it had been made of flesh instead of stone. With a quick jerk of her sword, supplemented by a quick burst of her air magic, she forced Rocky's out of the way, and, taking a hold of the handle with her second hand, she quickly rotated it into a horizontal strike to its head before it even had a chance to respond.
“That attempt was zero-point-zero-zero-two seconds slower than the last one. That could be the difference between life and death,” the gargoyle said in a voice that seemed rather more appropriate for a robot.
“I know that,” Ikkin snapped. Ever since the end of the last Guild War, she'd been acutely aware of just how vulnerable she could be, and she suspected that had been affecting her performance. The fact that the Underdeep's puppet had managed to do so much damage to her while remaining mostly unaffected by her own attacks bugged her in ways she couldn't really explain.
And speaking of the Underdeep...
Ikkin turned to look at the sky as she felt one of her fellow mages fly out of one of the Manor's window. Celestial, the new Archmage, quickly turned into a dragon and took off, flying off to the southeast.
Ikkin wasn't jealous of Celestial, not really. She knew that she hadn't been living up to her Archmage duties – her recent several-month disappearance had been more than enough proof that someone else would be able to do more for the Mages than she ever could.
But, still, the fact that the new Archmage had helped the Underdeep in its attempt to destroy everything she cared about made Ikkin vaguely uncomfortable, even if Celestial had been possessed when she did it.
And by vaguely uncomfortable, Ikkin thought, she meant that she felt a sinking feeling in her stomach every time she saw the new Archmage attempt to interact with the other guilds in any way.
The fact that Celestial was now flying out alone for what seemed to be a fairly-long journey didn't sit well with Ikkin, especially since she seemed to be flying directly for Brassport. Ikkin didn't know much about Brassport except that it had appeared suddenly during the Underdeep catastrophe.
Well, that, and that Celestial had tried to start a war with them.
That settled it, Ikkin decided. She didn't really have much to do anyway, apart from her training. Suppressing her magical signature, she took to the skies herself, allowing the Archmage to gain a few minutes' head start so she wouldn't be seen. And then, she took off towards the southeast herself, using the location of Celestial's magical signature to match speed as she followed the dragon as it flew.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2010 21:09:09 GMT -5
"Seriously, Drakhé. This is the third time since you've arrived."
"I know."
"And every single time, you've been injured. Fighting a fire mage, you got burnt. Fighting a shaman, you got rabies."
"I know."
"And now you have the gall to attack a shapeshifter?!"
The short, scrawny and black-scaled dragon was in the infirmary. Much of his body was covered in bandages, and what wasn't showed that he carried more scars than anyone else in the guild. Unlike his wounds from the battle, these scars were old and mostly healed, including the burns he had recieved from the pyromancer.
Before the healer had asked him that question, Drakhé had been looking away from her. Now he raised his head to look her straight in the eye.
"Yes."
She shivered - was that out of fear, or because of his deep, deep voice? - but recovered quickly.
What followed was a lecture. You of all people should know better, she said. You're a shapeshifter yourself. Yes, you do have amnesia; we haven't forgotten that. Regardless, if you keep on doing this you'll end up dead - forever - if not expelled. If you really need to vent your anger, there are the training rooms. Or your pillow. And yes, we know you've been through a lot of crap even before you turned up. That's still no excuse to turn to violence.
The dragon just nodded and grunted, making the occasional "Yes". He'd been through this lecture before. After an "Are you really paying attention", a "Do you understand", and some more lecturing, the nurse left, leaving him alone.
The room slowly began to darken.
It wasn't that simple. Couldn't they see that? They themselves had analyzed the scars that covered his body. They themselves had told him that he had been tortured while he was gone. Part of his left horn had been broken off, among other things.
And he couldn't use his magic - he didn't know how.
He'd been through crap, and all he got was being treated like crap.
The room went darker still as he snarled.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2010 21:19:37 GMT -5
Well, that was mildly suspicious. Two members of Mage Manor, heading off in the same direction. A tawny striped feline picked herself up and yawned, noting the direction they were head mentally as she stood up and padded around Mage Manor. She found the entrance, stepped inside, and quickly slipped from a hallway into the nearest door. Even with the odd properties of Mage Manor, she'd found that finding people was sometimes harder than it should be, especially when they didn't want to be found. But she had a good guess as to where her target was.
A burst of fire greeted her as the door opened, and the cat walked through it and blinked up. [Angry again, are we?]
"I figured it was you," the girl returned with a mutter. She grabbed a red robe from her side and shrugged it on, straightening the fabric and starting on the clasps. "What is it, Lika?"
Many things, the Felyr thought, but she remained silent. The mage was moody, irritable, and generally tinkled off constantly now. Something had happened, and Aly didn't offer and Lika didn't ask. All she knew was that the girl was acting about the same as she had when she'd acquired dark magic, and that bugging her was probably a bad idea. Probably. What worried her more was that the mage was acting extremely nicely around other people whenever she wasn't by herself.
Speaking of by herself. [I see you wasted no time in setting everything on fire here.]
"Shut up."
[You still need oxygen to live, you know.]
"I'm not an idiot. There's an air supply to this room." Aly sighed and jerked the strap of her quiver up from another chair. "Look. Let's...why the heck are you here anyway?"
[Ikkin and...who was it, Celestial?--just left.]
"And?"
[Do you want to follow?]
"Let them go off wherever...Lika, stop staring at me like that."
"...Seriously."
"...What, you want me to follow them?"
[Better than you wrecking things here.]
"You're not my mother," the girl scowled, running a hand through her hair. "And I don't appreciate the concern. Go after them yourself if you want."
[I can force you.]
Both glared at each other for a few tense seconds, which stretched into minutes upon minutes of tortured silence. "Fine." Aly sighed and grabbed the doorknob. "Where?"
[Not certain. We'll have to explore.]
"Lovely." Another heavy sigh. "I'll get a map."
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Post by Scar on Jun 21, 2010 1:26:45 GMT -5
It had been several months since they’d crashed the Blackstone Wings. Well since Blackstone had crashed it to be precise. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had been adamant that Blackstone had gone nuts and tried to take the wheel from him while Sarinon had pointed out that the poor man had tripped over some loose rigging. Regardless, the ship had spiralled out of control and it was all the Gentleman Adventurer could do to level the ship out before it crashed into the forest below.
Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had managed to dig the badly wounded Sarinon, still in her fox form, out of the wreckage before he jumped overboard, and in the nick of time too for the main boiler had chosen that moment to go off. When the steam cloud had cleared, the gravity of the situation had hit him: he was all alone with an injured lady … fox … foxy lady and nothing in the way of medical supplies or doctors. That and they were completely lost.
He remembered doing his best to bandage Sarinon’s wounds with what remained of his shirt when he had his first encounter with the rebels – or freedom fighters as they liked to call themselves. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had seen his fair share of brigands but most never gave warning shots and all were human.
He was already surrounded by the time the first red arrow had stopped juddering in the tree trunk, inches away from his face. It wasn’t long before they revealed themselves to him, emerging like silent shadows from the surrounding brush. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, didn’t know it at the time but it was at this point that his life had taken a turn for the better. Stranger, but better.
The rebels had all worn long cloaks with hoods that obscured most of their features but he had paid more attention to the ornate crossbows being pointed at the two of them. He had immediately clutched Sarinon to him, turning away so she wouldn’t be in the line of fire, and gibbered to them about how she needed help. The largest of the rebels, whom he had assumed correctly as their leader, stepped forward, took one look at Sarinon’s injuries and called for the others to lower their crossbows.
The freedom fighters had then taken the both of them into their hidden forest base and, thanks to their resident healers, mended most of Sarinon’s wounds, to his relief. And so, while waiting for the foxy lady to recover from the ordeal, Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had done what he always did and schmoozed his way into his new friends’ hearts.
“So-ooo … Malinovka, quite a merry band you have here,” Oscar said, fingering the shot glass full of what the rebels called vodka. “What are you, erm, rebelling about?”
“Isn’t it plain to see, comrade? The shearers of course!” boomed Malinovka, downing the contents of his shot glass.
“The … shearers?”
From what he could discern, Malinovka the Hood had led a glorious revolution against the shepherds, or ‘corrupt bourgeois pigs’ as he preferred to call them. His … what could roughly be called men, all of them being comprised of anthropomorphic sheep, had broken out of their pens and were now waging a guerrilla war against the ‘oppressive capitalist swine’. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had seen some very odd things in his years as a Gentleman Adventurer but rebel sheep certainly took the cake.
“And you good comrade, tell me about yourself and the strange flying machine,” Malinovka had asked him one day. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, had proceeded to gleefully recount his past exploits, carefully leaving out the bits where he pocketed the spoils. They seemed to be pretty sore about money. “Ah haha! I knew you were a fellow revolutionary the moment I saw you! This … Brassport you mentioned, tell me more about it.”
And he did, especially noting Blackstone Industry’s monopoly over the TEP business, to Malinovka’s displeasure. “Hrmph, even in other worlds do the bourgeois hold sway. They will not stop until they have us all in their greedy hooves!”
“They don’t have hooves where I come from.”
“Details!”
“Comrade Malinovka?”
Both ram and human turned to see one of the younger ewes standing at the doorway to the common room. Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, remembered that she was one of the healers attending to Lady Sarinon. “Yes Mariya?”
Mariya rubbed her hooves together. “Comrade, the patient is awake –”
“That’s good news!” At this, Malinovka thumped the human on the back.
“– And is no longer a fox.”
There was an uncomfortable silence until Oscar, Gentleman Adventurer, cleared his throat. “I’d better check up on her.”
“I do not think it is wise, comrade Oscar,” Mariya replied, blushing. “She is … currently lacking clothes and isn’t in a very good mood.”
“Oh.”
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2010 1:27:39 GMT -5
It had not been a nice day for her. Sarinon’s body was riddled with ugly wounds and burns and, worse, she had had nothing with which to preserve her dignity. She hadn’t known where she was or what had happened and the situation was only made worse when she had heard the voice of Oscar Featherstone approaching the small hut.
“Poor lamb,” the eldest ewe had bleated, taking off her own olive green cloak and wrapping it around Sarinon’s frail shoulders. It had been one small kindness, for which the Feberi woman was eternally grateful. Briefly, she remembered the scene in the Meeting Hall of Brassport, her reunion and subsequent separation with her brother, and the torturous presence of the Underdeep, which had forced her into her fox form in the first place. Her emerald green dress probably still lay on the floor of the hall.
And Emily ... The poor woman was lost to Sarinon. She had no idea what had happened to her after she let her hand go, or even if she had survived. Her eyes had burned, threatening tears at the jumbled memories, before slowly welling up and trailing down her face, dripping gently onto the ground between her feet. The memory returned like a nightmare.
The Blackstone Wings started falling apart and she could do nothing. A helpless vixen who knew that, if she had been human at the time, she could have at least landed the airship without it blowing up. She had done all she could, leaping out of Oscar’s arms and clamping her jaws around a valve that would slowly release gases from the giant blimp. She remembered vaguely that Oscar and Blackstone had been yelling, both fighting over the helm, while she darted into the thick of the machinery to see what else she could do.
It was then that parts of the metal frame began to fracture and a heavy section came crashing down right on top of the tiny fox. Nothing else was clear to her except the vague memory of pain, the taste of blood in her mouth and then nothing. Nothing until she had woken in the camp of the Shearwood Freedom Fighters. Comrade Molotov, the chief healer, had apparently patched her up and passed her into the care of Helga Hogget, an elderly ewe with a rough voice and a soft heart.
She had dried her tears quickly, pulled the donated cloak tight about her and stepped out to meet Oscar, determined not to show her weakness. He looked genuinely relieved to see her, a sentiment which softened her slightly.
“Mr Featherstone, what happened?”
Oscar had explained about the crash, told her, with only slight boasting, how he had pulled her from the wreckage and chanced upon the anthropomorphic band of communist sheep. He had then proceeded to quietly suggest that, for her own safety and well-being, he could conduct a full-body examination to ensure there was no infection. Normally this would have gotten him a sharp retort, but Sarinon had felt weak and Oscar had only been joking. Or at least she thought. Besides, the man had now saved her life a total of three times, and that fact made her oddly quiet and … sheepish … around him.
“Mr Blackstone?” she had asked, holding back the tears again.
Oscar had shaken his head in a slightly more dramatic way than was really necessary, and Sarinon hadn’t been able to hold back the tears. They flowed forth once more. Blackstone, while not exactly a close friend, had always been good to her. Oscar had gone back to the wreckage to search for him, but was unsuccessful. He was, for all intents and purposes, assumed dead.
That day was the first time Sarinon had let Oscar touch her. He had held out his arms just like Sarn used to do, and she, without thinking, let him hold her for just a little while. When her tears were dried, she had stepped back quickly, straightened her cloak and looked directly at Oscar for the first time.
“We need to get back to Brassport.”
“Yes, good friends!” boomed Comrade Malinovka, clicking his hooves together in what might be considered a hearty clap, “and we shall come with you! For there are many foes in this world of ours and the fighters of freedom must band together!”
That had been a long time ago, months maybe, and after several arguments against Comrade Malinovka’s flock following them back – arguments to which the ram himself remained stubbornly silent on – they had made a mildly educated guess in which direction Brassport lay and headed south.
They had passed into the open grasslands, camped at a lake for over a week to allow Sarinon more time to heal, and then continued on their journey, angling slightly west. Now it was almost dark, their camp had been set up and Sarinon, who had managed to acquire some practical clothing before they set off, was stirring a pot of soup and feeling slightly useless once again.
They were now only a day’s journey from Brassport, its spires of steam rising during the day, and its lamps and fires twinkling during then night. Sarinon cherished her ability to see them now that they were close, even if everything was its usual blurry self. Her sight, along with her wings, were taken from her when she was a child trying to save her twin brother from being pulled into an alternate universe, and now that she had followed him to that same universe, her sight was slowly returning to her. Perhaps her dormant wing buds would even begin to sprout. She shivered.
A blanket fell around her shoulders and Oscar joined her on the ground by the small fire. The man had been infuriatingly kind, kept his jokes and flashy pride to a minimum and supported her every step of the journey, sometimes even literally. Her wounds were fully healed, but the illness that had ailed her for over a year now, the one that no doctor in Brassport could determine, was still draining her strength.
The fact that Oscar had been such a gentleman was somewhat endearing, but also a huge blow to her pride, something which she had had to swallow quickly. And the man deserved some credit for his turn of behavior. She turned to face him.
“Mr Featherstone … I wish to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. When we reach Brassport I will endeavor to repay you somehow.”
She hoped he didn’t feel like a hired servant. Or worse, an escort.
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Post by Rikku on Jun 21, 2010 3:38:35 GMT -5
Rikku peered intently in the fireplace, brow crunkled. She thought of flames all a-flicker, of heat and light and burning.
The fireplace remained stony.
… And, alright, yes, it was made of stone. That didn’t help. But it was stony in an entirely more obnoxious way; it was as though, if the fireplace was a person, it’d be the kind of clerk who listened patiently as you explained your problem, and then informed you, kindly and reasonably, that, no, your bag/purchase/horse and cart could not be restored to you, your bag/purchase/horse and cart had, in fact, been cast to the darkest furthest depths of some horrid and unhygienic pit somewhere, and this had been done because the clerk was bored and did not like you.
Rikku suspected that she was starting to get a little annoyed. Just a little.
She rubbed her face, sighed, and went to get a drink of water from the kitchen.
She could, have course, merely sculled some of her patent necromancer’s drink, blood and wine and ashes, but this wasn’t necromancy, just basic pyromancy, and anyway her most recent batch was a little … odd. It’s what came of trying to make magical aids without having magic.
But she was trying not to think that.
“It’s not that I don’t have magic,” she reasoned aloud, though there was no one but the walls of the corridor (equally stony, but in a much more obliging way, being the Manor) to hear her. “It’s more like … magic doesn’t have me. Yes.”
She smiled assertively for a few dozen paces.
“Except for how that doesn’t make sense,” she added, quietly, but then she entered the kitchen, and that drove depressing magicless thoughts from her head, more or less.
If anything could make her more cheerful, it was the kitchen. A few months ago she’d become cognizant of the fact that there were golems working there, and Rikku was the kind of person who took a kind of malevolent glee in ordering folk around when they couldn’t fight back.
“Hello,” she said to the one in the kitchen at that point, and looked up at it. And up.
It wasn’t that the golem was ungraceful, or hulking; it was merely very, very tall, brush-against-the-ceiling tall, and though the lines of its limbs were clean and elegant it was difficult to think of it as ‘dainty’. It was made of baked clay, quite fine, nearly white. It was hard to quite describe how it moved. In its mouth there was a scroll, and its eyes glowed a flat, unpleasant black. Rikku hadn’t thought it was possible for something to glow black until she’d seen golems. It was something to do with the magic in the words, she suspected; magic ink, or maybe just magic words.
The golem was vast and its eyes were terrible.
“Make me an omelette?” asked Rikku cheerfully.
The golem went about its business, silently. They could talk, if you made them, but their voices sounded a little muffled. As, indeed, anyone’s voice would if they had a scroll in their mouth.
Sometimes Rikku wondered if she bossed the golems about so much because she missed bossing around her other minions, both of whom were currently beneath one of the Manor’s apple trees, and also beneath several feet of dirt. It wasn’t her fault. The potion wasn’t working, her magic wasn’t working …
She would’ve been a lot more upset than this, and was, but it was tricky to be properly angsty when faced with the prospect of omelette.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2010 10:35:57 GMT -5
<<Mage Manor>>
"So, they went off...this way, you said?"
[Approximately.]
"But there isn't anything there!" Aly growled, turning the map over as if that would make a new location appear. Actually, since she'd picked the map up in a random room, that was a distinct possibility...but the map remained the same. "I mean. unless they're just frolicking or something--" She stopped suddenly, noting that her nose was about an inch from a familiar door. She only realized then that her stomach was complaining in sharp, merciless tones. "Shut it," she snapped, and sighed. The mage had burned a ton of energy that morning, magical and physical. It was no wonder she was hungry.
"Urgh." With another distinct sigh, she folded the map into a square and strode in, Lika padding quietly behind her. Just some food, in and out quickly, and hopefully no one will be in...No luck. "Hi Rikku," she said, forcing cheer into it. She reached out for a loaf of bread, turning and hoping to cut a potential conversation short, but the golem caught her attention. Her stomach growled again, this time in eager notes. Stupid stomach. "Uh...is that omelette?"
<<Somewhere in Brassport>>
"And...that's the last of it!" The young man smiled and nodded his head. "Thanks. Are you sure you don't want the extra?"
"Nah, the extra's to make up for taking it without permission." Asta grimaced inwardly as she felt the lack of gold at her side, but it'd had to be done--even cheap airships were worth quite a bit. "Sorry about that."
"No problem. Maybe you'll come and buy one sometime?"
"I'll think about it," the woman said with a grin. She quickly turned and walked out, slowing to a more reasonable pace and jamming her hands into the pockets of her overcoat. She glanced up at the sky--a new sky, bright and clear, still unfamiliar but gradually becoming an old sight. Wonder where Ro is. Probably back at Castle Kestrel.
The chemist wandered around the streets, thinking. Normally, handing over even large amounts of gold wouldn't upset her, but she had realized after returning that she had a severe shortage of mercury. The element wasn't particularly difficult for her to obtain...except that she was stuck in a foreign land with the rest of Brassport, with no ready facilities for extracting the element from cinnabar or other ores. She had quite a few capsules back at her residence, but only maybe 20 or so, having burned through a ton to make the gold. And it's such a heavy element, making it myself would be hard...
Ha. Maybe the odd assortment of people here could make it appear out of magic.
...Actually, maybe they could. One could hope.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Jun 21, 2010 12:29:04 GMT -5
Mage Manor- Main Room
Krisseh layed on the couch, wondering why everyone was heading to that steampunk place. Personally, she had bigger foods to fry, rather than diplomancy, and such. She had the more casual approach to things. Besides, she hasn't been in her kingdom for god knows how long, so why bother?
"Well... it is too dull around here..."
But then again, with the amount of activity she showed... it would be for the best to at least go to that steampunk place and go and help with the fancy shmancy stuff.
Sighing, she got off the couch, and quickly made her way to Brassport.
"What am I getting myself into... its just a simple alliance plan... Should I even bother?"
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2010 18:10:18 GMT -5
If you asked Delilah why she was on the roof, she'd tell you she was bored. There was something about being bored and being on a roof that didn't make the boredom quite so significant.
Although you couldn't really call it a roof. A ledge, more or less. Nice and smooth. Thick enough to have a picnic on, as long as none of your guests suffered from vertigo. The real roof was a spire, steep and tiled, and the only things that sat up there were pigeons.
Delilah liked the ledge, though. It was a nice place to sit... providing one got used to all the steam. It was difficult to breathe, sometimes, yes, but the view was worth it. The whole city, stretched out like a map, buildings like toys scattered across a playroom floor, when the streetlamps came on you could pretend they were stars; you don't see too many stars, in the city.
Yes, it was a nice place to sit. Especially if you were bored.
The reason Del was so found of the particular building was simple: it was a clocktower, and she liked clocks.
Of course, from her angle, she couldn't see the clockface, but she could feel it. Every ticking of the giant hand sent small tremors through the stonework. You hardly noticed them unless you knew they were there. Like breathing, she decided. As if the building were alive.
She was glad the building was still alive. Standing, that is. Happy it wasn't destroyed in that.. in that... whatever it had been.
Del liked clocks. She liked the way all the little gears fit together, puzzle pieces and brick. Clockwork was fascinating, and not just the clock part of it. The music boxes and the toy trains that rolled around on tin tracks... how it worked, how the tiny pieces came together and made the wheels spin and... it made her smile just to think about it.
Another reason why she hung around the clocktower so much. The gears - she had heard about the, but never seen them. Just like the ones in pocketwatches and jewelry boxes with the spinning ballerina and key... except bigger. Magnificent.
... and behind closed doors. Locked doors.
If she could just get in. If she could just see those gears...
Delilah frowned and turned back to her work. It was a mechanical lock-pick, bought of the street from a rather questionable vendor... oh well. She could worry about that later. As long as no one found it. All that mattered right now was the locked door and the gears that hid behind it.
The lock-pick hadn't worked the first time she had tried it. Really, she should've expected it. Shoddy merchandise and all. But where were you supposed to find a quality lock-pick? They didn't exactly sell those at the high-end boutiques. She supposed she could always ask her parents to place in an order for one and... oh god did that really sound as bad as I think it did?
Whatever. The lock-pick now lay in pieces, taken apart and spread out across the ledge like a jigsaw waiting to be put back together. Her toolbox sat beside her, open and waiting. She couldn't possibly build a functioning lock-pick from scratch - I mean, where to begin? There's so much to be done - but if she could take this one apart, see how what the pieces did, how they all fit together, then maybe she could improve it. Tighten the springs there, give a little more clench to that part, maybe add a cute glittery keychain - pink, maybe. or yellow. you could never go wrong with yellow - when she was done...
And that's when she saw the dragon.
(Really, it was only a glimpse - a split second of spikes and purple wings - before the dragon landed, out of sight. But really, that's all you need. When you see a dragon... well... did she really need to finish that sentence?)
Del waited a half-second before speaking. "Cool."
The toolbox was loaded and closed in seconds, the bits and pieces of the lock-pick unceremoniously dumped into a shabby cloth sack. She ran down the steps two at a time. The gate. That's where it landed. The gate. Somewhere around there, at least.
... a dragon!
The clocktower would always be there; the locked door could wait.
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Post by icon on Jun 21, 2010 21:35:05 GMT -5
Eli Clenman walked down his normal route through Brassport's streets, polishing it up. A bit of oil here to fix that door, some warm water from his steam-pack to fog up a window, then a nice rub to polish it off and give it that extra-glossy shine. Good as new, he thought to himself. Brushing a bit of scrap metal off the street, he walked on past the town hall.
Much of the wreckage from the Guild War caused had been repaired, but plenty still remained to clean up. Naturally, the maintenance crew had been picked for the job. It took a long time, cleaning up. But they were nearly finished, and the city looked fantastic.
Eli squirted a bit of water at a window to get some grime off. As he was washing it, he checked his reflection to see that he was doing well. As he turned back to his duty, he noticed a small dot of purple along the window, but it was gone in a flash. Or was it ever really there in the first place?
Oh well, back to work. Eli sighed and walked down the street.
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Post by Jina on Jun 22, 2010 10:03:46 GMT -5
Barrett, the guardsman that Celestial had talked to, went over to a pipe sticking out of the wall next to the gate, and shouted into it. "Excuse me, Captain, the leader of the Mages Guild is here and wishes to speak to the Mayor."
There were a few seconds pause, and then a rough but somewhat muffled voice came through the other end. "Well, it had to happen some time. Escort her to his office."
Barrett went to open the gate, and was sure he heard the Captain say something about a riot.
"Okay, Archmage, if you'd like to follow me."
---
There was a knock on Owen's door. That meant the secretary wanted to come in, and the secretary was rather fussy about paperwork, so Owen quickly arranged himself so it looked like he was actually doing something. He'd already done it all, he just hadn't bothered to give it back yet, because none of it was really that important.
"Come in."
"I know you must be busy, Mayor, but the leader of the Mages Guild has just arrived and is on her way."
Owen got out of his chair. "Thank you. I'll go down and meet her outside."
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Post by Lord Hayati on Jun 22, 2010 12:41:08 GMT -5
brassport
Krisseh walked up to the gates of brassport. She admired how they built it. so much steam... but yet at the same time, it had an antique look to it. She knocked on the gates.
"Hello, I'm Krisseh Aeoia from the mage manor. Since Most of the mages are here, I figured I just come, just incase something happened."
She smiled... but yet at the same time, had a grim thought. When she had heard the news of the underdeep taking celestial, it was like her world was torn apart. Celestial was her very best friend, and to be taken by the underdeep... was gut wrenching.
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Post by Tiger on Jun 22, 2010 13:05:12 GMT -5
Wandering somewhere between the city of Brassport and the Mage's grand mansion in what she supposed could only be called a self-bestowed exile, Tiger was fairly surprised to glance casually toward the sky and see a gargantuan purple reptile outsizing the clouds as it passed overhead.
Tiger had never seen a real dragon before, had in fact hovered between believing they existed, somewhere, and convincing herself dragons were just a blend of animals and peoples’ imagination. That apparently wasn’t the case, and being a mage, Tiger adjusted her mindset faster than most people she knew. Something about having once had a career set by the ability to create animals out of a mist exuding from her hands made it difficult to be skeptical for long.
“Well,” she muttered, adjusting the strap of a travel sack on her shoulder, “I suppose it has to be up to something.”
Tiger stood for a moment, considering what to do about this, while the birds hesitantly returned to their singing now that the giant purple carnivore had passed them by. The thick folds of her dark robes billowed slightly in a gust of wind, and her oddly-colored hair- a rusty orange with numerous thin, black stripes- threatened to pull from the back of her cloak, where she had pinned the mid-back length growth to keep it from blowing into her eyes as she walked.
Finally, Tiger decided it would be too big a shame to let a dragon vanish without at least seeing it once more. Instead of preparing for an arduous climb to the treetops in the hopes of spotting it, however, Tiger merely held out her hands in the typical pose of a mage cradling an orb of light, one hand above the other, palms pointed toward each other. Slowly at first, then more quickly, a silver-green mist appeared in the space between her hands. When Tiger judged she had enough mist for her purposes, she began moving her hands, shaping the mist without touching it, as a sculptor molds clay. Each fingertip seemed to gleam in the faint light emitted by the mist- in actuality, the short black claws in place of each nail were reflecting that glow.
In perhaps half a minute, Tiger held up her creation. A silver gray peregrine falcon now rested on her palm, and at a mental command from Tiger, took flight. Equipped with a basic set of falcon instincts, enough to control its own flight, the peregrine caught a thermal, and launched itself higher than the dragon had been flying. Peregrines were fast in a dive, but much slower in level flight. By making a long, controlled dive, the falcon could catch up to the dragon and stay with it. Theoretically.
Tiger shrugged her pack from her shoulders, and settled against a thick tree trunk to wait for the falcon’s return. She could technically keep moving, and the bird would find her eventually, but the mage wanted to know what was happening as soon as possible. After carefully placing the large scabbard containing her unusual sword where she could reach it in an emergency, Tiger pulled the hood of her cloak over her head, hiding the two cat ears poking from her stripped hair, as well as the strange, almost feline-shape of her face. Tiger had found it easier to avoid trouble with other forest wanderers when she didn’t have to explain why her face looked as if a talented magician had switched out a few bones for those in a wildcat’s skull.
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