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Post by Speck on Oct 10, 2010 22:43:25 GMT -5
Speck bristled at the thought of even more Spacefleet personel joining the pirates for... who knows why, really. She shifted the cartridge belt that was slung across her chest, loaded with lemon bombs. They were going to Mage Manor purely for the library, but it didn't hurt to come prepared. Speck didn't intend to use them, anyway.
At least that awful jumpsuit had been left behind on the ship. It was starchy and uncomfortable compared to her normal attire. She figured she might be more comfortable in her own clothes if she had to hang around anyone from Spacefleet. Before hopping of the Blarf, Speck stowed her notes in her inside coat pocket.
"I can lead us in, if you don't mind. The layout of the Manor is kind of... eccentric if you don't know how to navigate it."
Nodding, Speck thought to herself. The captain had enough eyes to search for the information they needed. Surely she could go off on her own within the confines of the library to find her own information. Black mist aside, The Weewoo's on-board defenses weren't going to upgrade themselves!
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Post by Strife on Oct 11, 2010 2:34:51 GMT -5
As Haggoth guided his ship closer to ground level, his sensors immediately picked up readings of an additional Spacefleet officer. If the officer had been there the whole time, he would have detected them a long time ago, so they must have approached the Pirates in an exceptionally speedy land vehicle.
After an immediate ID check, Haggoth's brow jolted upwards in surprise. Commander Fraze? What was he doing here?
Haggoth didn't want to assume there was trouble. He was, afterall, on vacation. He nevertheless felt the need to prepare himself in case hostility broke out.
A short distance away from the Manor, blades of grass began to blow wildly, and a circle of wind appeared on the ground. Haggoth's vessel, now re-painted in a glossy red color, descenced from the clouds, the light of its twin engines illuminating the air with a cyan glow. The ship lowered itself softly onto the windy circle of grass, and when it touched the ground, the engines rotated 90 degrees while the ship itself whirred to sleep.
Haggoth removed his grip from the manual control stick, spun his chair around and grabbed the coat of his officer's uniform, which was hanging on the corner of a wall terminal. He hastily put the coat on over his Hawaiian shirt, then fastened a Utility Belt to his cargo shorts with the basics: Small blaster, knife, pocket medkit, Terrestrial Positioning Scanner, a pouch of fruit that resembled oddly-colored apples, and the obligatory hogskull-and-crossbones emblem.
There was a clanking noise, and the ship's vertical door swooped upwards. A ramp planted itself into the ground, and Haggoth carefully stepped down with a metal suitcase in each hand. Once his hooves made contact with the soil, he peered into the distance and saw most of the Pirate crew riding on top of a furry beast with tentacles, along with Fraze trailing closely behind them.
Haggoth walked towards the group at a brisk pace. "Commander!" He snorted as loud as he could, "What in the bluegreen moons you doing here, Sir?"
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Post by Draco on Oct 11, 2010 4:30:56 GMT -5
A short distance away from Mage Manor, in a tree, a pair of eyes watch the manor. The shadow takes out a piece of paper and scribbles something down and ties it to the leg of a bird, and lets it loose. The bird circles the tree a few times, before making it's way to the Kage Mountains.
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Post by Fraze on Oct 11, 2010 5:00:29 GMT -5
"A few of 'em came up with some surprisingly creative methods of execution," Fraze answered Hunty with bland irony. "My favorite was the one where they stick several thousand small bone fragments in your--well, you probably don't want to hear it."
Fraze navigated the hoverbike until he was near the blarf's head, next to Huntress. "Anyway," he continued. He had watched many of the exchanges between Hunty and her dark blue shoulder-mounted advisor like the one currently in progress. After many failed attempts to get a word in edgewise, Fraze learned that talking over the current speaker was a perfectly acceptable way of communicating with these two. "I need a vacation. Badly. I've come to cash in that promise of some time at sea. Manual labor will do me a world of good after ten days cooped up with a bunch of dignitaries wanting to rip my throat out."
He took a moment to survey the surroundings. He recognized some of the people riding blarfback. He did a double-take upon realizing he recognized some of them very clearly.
"Keng! Glad to see you made it back. Or forward? Never could get my time travel tenses straight, and I still say Dan Streetmentioner was a hack who was just in it for the money. I...don't think I've organized a rescue party yet. It's a great idea, though, make sure you remind me to do it one of these days. You don't owe me anything, but if you feel like it, I guess having another favor to cash in always helps."
Yep, this was Mage Manor, all right. He spent a moment pondering the diplomatic implications of entering the building. He was familiar with the Manor's security system and peculiar methods of transportation--and gave himself a short mental beration for using technical jargon to describe magic--and knew that he should be safe to enter if he had no hostile intentions, despite carrying weapons. But he was still the Commander of Spacefleet, and barging in unexpectedly less than a month after...that...could be taken as a hostile action.
But he wasn't acting as Commander of Spacefleet now, was he? No, of course not, he was just Fraze the tourist, on vacation and looking to explore the planet for a while. Well, he would try to go in. If someone confronted him about it, he would leave. That was about as diplomatic as he felt like being since at the moment, he was quite well and thoroughly sick of diplomacy.
There was a noise. And a wind. And a few more noises. Must be Haggoth's ship, he thought.
"Commander!" came an unmistakable voice that could only be described as porcine.
"What in the bluegreen moons you doing here, Sir?"
"I could ask you the same thing, Subcommander," he responded in a voice that was conversational but still commanderly. He was getting pretty good at these voices. "I'm taking a vacation. From the looks of it--" he glanced at the bright yellow and orange shirt with a palm tree and surfboard pattern that was peeking through Haggoth's heavy coat "--so are you." He faltered for a moment upon realizing that Haggoth's shirt also appeared to include what looked like scantily clad female warthogs sunbathing in bikinis. "Well, this could be a good opportunity to get to know my security chief a bit better."
He turned and walked toward the Manor. He had seen more people here he wished to speak with, but this was probably not the right time for the sensitive discussions that would undoubtedly arise.
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Post by Celestial on Oct 11, 2010 8:29:59 GMT -5
Celestial was in the library. It seemed that all she was doing these days was arguing with the Librarian over the management of the books. Of course there were other duties she needed and wanted to do but the Librarian always insisted on keeping her here. She was the Archmage for goodness sake, she couldn't afford to be ordered about by this man. And yet she couldn't refuse him. She always felt inexplicably afraid if she did. It's not like he ever changed his voice or showed any trace of anger but he just inspired those kinds of feelings. It was ridiculous.
"I'm saying that the chains will be replaced soon! I've told you that many times before!"
"How soon?"
"As soon as I can as I can get ahold of a good chainmaker who will make Immaterial chains for a reasonable price. And that's not an easy task, I assure you."
"Can't you make them with magic?"
"We don't have a mage who can work with metal well enought nor good knowledge on how to make a normal chain, let alone an Immaterial one. They won't last a week!"
"Just get them. The other books are growing restless."
Celestial noted how he didn't mention the damage to the Manor and the Mages that could occur if the demon books slipped their chains. She was about to say that but the Manor opened up a window in front of her, giving her an excellent view of the front lawn. There was a ship parked there with what looked like a bipedal warthog (she couldn't tell if he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt or not from this distance) climbing out and the Commander of Spacefleet was speaking to him. And there was a large group of Pirates entering the Manor, with Ikkin leading them. The Guardians had let them pass so they probably weren't a threat but she'd like to see what this was all about.
"Do you mind?" she turned to the Librarian, putting on her iciest voice.
"Go on," he said in the calm tones he said everything. There was something odd about this guy.
Celestial walked out of the library and the Manor took her straight to the front entrance, where the pirates were coming in. She waved to them but her wings were raised in a gesture which could have been interpreted as defensive.
"Hello, what's happened to make you suddenly come here? And for that matter, what's with the 'Fleeters on our lawn?"
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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2010 11:44:34 GMT -5
Ah, so according to a fellow crewmember (Speck; that was her name, right?), they just had to behave themselves. "Sounds fair enough," the coati replied. Then a thought crossed her mind. "Wait, what'd you say about the Manor--"
And then the Spacefleet lady started yelling. And then she talked about how one of her superiors wanted to join them. Nasue groaned audibly. And then other people started showing up. First there was that guy she saw with the Captain on that fateful day a few weeks back, followed by some huge boar bloke.
Apparently, they were also from Spacefleet.
Huh. Guess things will get interesting now.
Carefully climbing down from the Blarf (parkour training had been useful there, as well as on the White Weewoo), the blue-furred coati slowly approached the Manor herself, hanging back a bit. After all, she preferred to trust her superiors, and she probably would need a guide... but why would the mages live in a building that had a mind of its own?
It kinda explains why it's so many colours but... wouldn't that be dangerous?
The doors opened, and out emerged a woman in purple. No, wait. A familiar woman in purple. The faint red and blue, a tinge of darkness... Nasue gasped.
"You're--you're that dragon! You didn't--" NO. STOP.
Awk-ward.
"Uh, I mean--" she stood up straight, looking as tall and decidedly unfeminine as ever. The choice of outfit probably didn't help. "We're looking for something. B-but we don't know what it is so we need to do some research." Pause. Nervous laugh. "...you're not gonna kill me for being stupid, right?"
--
Elsewhere...
...or, more specifically, the Kage Mountains.
A white-furred dog rested in a garden. Lying on his back, he gazed up at the sky, watching the clouds and the birds.
There was a nearby flutter of wings. The dog sat up, attentive, as a bird with a message attached to its leg alighted on the ground.
He took the paper, giving the bird some bread before reading what it had to say.
His eyes went wide. Then they narrowed.
"...you. NNPC."
A nearby NNPC jumped, falling out of the tree where he'd been hiding. "How'd you know?!"
"You were breathing too loud. Dogs have good ears."
The dog turned to look at the other ninja. "Do me a favour. Go find Draco and Kovaran."
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Post by Strife on Oct 11, 2010 12:16:58 GMT -5
"I could ask you the same thing, Subcommander. I'm taking a vacation. From the looks of it, so are you."
"I'm only here on Doc's orders," replied Haggoth while dropping his suitcases with a thud. A disgruntled look was plastered on his face as he zipped up his uniform's jacket, concealing his unusual shirt. "Chief Medic Leoness diagnosed me with stress. Don't worry, though, Subcommander Mark is more than capable of handling my duties."
Haggoth caught a whiff of a familiar smell. He turned his head left and looked at the ground, realizing that one of his suitcases had just spilled open.
"Ah, fraggit," he muttered to himself. He shifted around to face the suitcase and bent down, stuffing its contents back inside. Among the dropped items were a grappling hook, a half-folded map of the planet surface, a flask, a bag full of his favorite flavor of meat paste, and a copy of Thursdays With Maria, a rather gripping romance novel that Subcommander Mark insisted he read during the trip. He managed to stuff everything back in before the rest of the contents became visible.
Haggoth stood up and turned back towards his superior, only to notice that he had traveled further towards the Manor entrance along with the Pirate crew. A few seconds of sprinting, and he had once again caught up to the group.
"Captain Huntress," he snorted, peering up at the leader of the Pirates with both suitcases tucked under his right arm. "I hate to break it to you, but I'm tagging along too. Doc's orders. Don't worry about providing for me, I brought my own stuff. And I'll stay out of your hair as long as you help the two of us relax." Haggoth jerked his head to the side to indicate that he was referring to Fraze. "Deal?"
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Post by Huntress on Oct 11, 2010 13:24:22 GMT -5
Hunty scaled Haggoth up and down with the kind of haughty scowl she usually reserved for newcomers whenever she was busy and was about to answer when something caught her eye. Something sleek, metallic red and strikingly familiar.
She craned her neck. "Woah, is that a class 6A warship? Somebody travels with style. Well, my good sir who has not yet introduced himself, I hope you have good security for that pretty thing because I doubt there'll be room to park it on my ship. Extra hands are always welcome on my crew, except we're not a five-star hotel-"
"Yet," Bloody Mary mumbled.
"-so you might have to chip in every now and then, you know, pull a line here, fasten a sail there, nothing too straining, girl work really."
The growing mischievous glint in the captain's eyes was cut short by a quiet rumble that started somewhere behind her back and grew relentlessly like a student's debt. Hunty shot a look backwards at the blarf, then ahead at the Manor and cursed under her breath.
"Cork it, boy!" This came like a whiplash. The blarf obeyed, nonetheless remaining growling a bit as if he was complaining to himself. That was the problem with having a huge fuzzy protective kraken around. He had a good memory and it didn't even take a good memory to remember the dragon-girl who'd attacked him not three weeks earlier.
Now, of course, said dragon girl turned out to be the Mages' key person to discuss their admission into the library. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap.
"Hello, what's happened to make you suddenly come here? And for that matter, what's with the 'Fleeters on our lawn?" Celestial asked. Oh yeah, the fleeters were now also her responsibility by proxy, right? Exponential crap.
"Don't mind them, they're just migrating to the seas at this time of the year," Hunty said, shooting a warning glare at her entire crew and sparing an extra long one for Nasue for good measure. "Leave some milk out every night and put a scarecrow in the strawberry bed and it'll be fine. Basically, we're here to ask for permission to search in your library a little. We're looking for," she hesitated a bit, "well, we're looking for a snark. The snark. As a proper noun, presumably." Hey, it was worth asking, right?
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Post by Fraze on Oct 11, 2010 13:46:47 GMT -5
The archmage came out. Oh, joy, just what Fraze didn't want.
Well, better to speak first. Especially better to speak before Haggoth. Fraze couldn't have asked for a better security officer, but was leery of the boar's level of tact. "We are not here representing Spacefleet." He was using his Diplomat Voice now. It sounded ever so slightly raspy, since he had been using it far too much lately. He cleared his throat. "We're both simply on vacation. While Spacefleet is interested in re-opening diplomatic channels with the Mages, this is neither the time nor place to discuss such things."
He paused for a moment, and something else came to mind. He dropped the Diplomat Voice and began using Regular Fraze Voice. "And I really need to use the bathroom. Could someone point me in the right direction?"
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Post by Lord Hayati on Oct 11, 2010 16:34:23 GMT -5
Krisseh Watched the pirates closely as they explored the manor. she was a bit uneasy, since she didn't know them, but since that high tech space age guild is here on their front LAWN (think about the lawn gnomes!)...
"One false move, and you get your just desserts. got that? I'm not used to the other guilds being in OUR manor!"
To them, it might seem like a terrible joke, but to herself, it was literal.
And it was her manor... or soon to be hers, if she ever got her mind out of crazy land.
But then again, messing with pirates is always fun to do, since they have the best reactions. x3
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Post by Strife on Oct 11, 2010 16:39:54 GMT -5
Haggoth returned the Captain's scowl upon hearing her mention his ship. Not like he needed to introduce himself to the pink-skin who hijacked his ride.
"Oh, she'll be just fine. I've had her defense systems overclocked since the last time she was tampered with," he responded, making sure to emphasize the last few words. "Anyone who touches her will get a face full of HUGO."
HUGO - short for Hyperspacial Undercover Guard Orb - was the latest security technology invented by Spacefleet. It was still undergoing tests back in HQ, but as the Chief of Security, Haggoth was able to get his hands on a prototype. Considering how much he adored his personal craft, he was all too eager to spoil her with the latest and greatest.
"I'm Haggoth by the way, nice to meet you and all that cheese," he continued while rolling his eyes, fully aware that the Captain was already speaking to someone else.
Haggoth turned towards the Commander just in time to hear him ask about going to the bathroom. He laughed.
"My ship has the proper facilities, Sir. You can export your log entries there, if you get my drift. Don't worry about HUGO, he'll leave you alone."
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Post by Speck on Oct 11, 2010 17:25:03 GMT -5
Speck stared at Haggoth's ship, almost with a hunger. It still didn't beat the Weewoo for splendor, but it was a close second. She imagined the inside might be so shiny that one might make the mistake of eating off of its surface.
She turned to the warthog, rather meekly, "It certainly is a nice shade of red. Kind of like a giant apple... with guns."
Speck gave a weak smile, shifted a bit, and hoped that this big fellow wouldn't recognize her. As if on cue, her anklet gave a muffled bleep from within her right boot. She unconsciously scratched her ankle with her other foot. Her mind buzzed with a slew of curses.
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Post by Celestial on Oct 11, 2010 17:36:32 GMT -5
"You're--you're that dragon! You didn't--" one of the pirates who got off the Blarf exclaimed. If Celestial was not supposed to present an unflappable image, she would have facepalmed right there and then. The Underdeep. To say she wasn't happy with what she did was like saying the man who died from cold could have used a jumper.
"Uh, I mean-- we're looking for something. B-but we don't know what it is so we need to do some research...you're not gonna kill me for being stupid, right?" the woman continued. Foot-in-mouth. The dragon mage smiled a little, as warmly as possible without it looking evil.
"Of course not!" she replied but broke off when the warthog raced over to the pirate captain and said something. She couldn't quite catch what was said but there was something about stuff and relaxing. Space tourists. Right.
And the Blarf now began to growl as it noticed her. Yes, the little incident with her attacking them. That was going to cause tension. Celestial would have given anything right now for several tankers of extra-strong brain bleach either for her or for the beastie.
"Don't mind them, they're just migrating to the seas at this time of the year. Leave some milk out every night and put a scarecrow in the strawberry bed and it'll be fine. Basically, we're here to ask for permission to search in your library a little. We're looking for, well, we're looking for a snark. The snark. As a proper noun, presumably." the pirate captain spoke this time. While Celestial didn't get the thing about the scarecrow, the rest made sense. She had no idea what a snark was though. Probably some kind of root vegetable or small animal.
"We are not here representing Spacefleet. We're both simply on vacation. While Spacefleet is interested in re-opening diplomatic channels with the Mages, this is neither the time nor place to discuss such things. And I really need to use the bathroom. Could someone point me in the right direction?" one of the 'Fleeters spoke up and Celestial could recognise him now as their leader. He had the voice for it, certainly. Although the last part could have used some working on. The Boar-man assisted him there and frankly, the dragon mage was glad. She didn't feel like instructing the Manor to lead the man to a bathroom nor did she think the Manor would have been polite enough to guide him there unharmed.
"One false move, and you get your just desserts. got that? I'm not used to the other guilds being in OUR manor!" Great, because things always worked out better when there was aggression to add to the awkward.
"Krisseh! Please, we have no need for that! They haven't harmed us yet and given the fact that the Manor is capable of taking care of itself, we don't have to worry," she cried out towards the jelly Usul, who was strangely aggessive for some reason. The dragon mage turned back to the pirates.
"You're certainly welcome to use the library if you need to and I'll ask the Manor to take you there. There's just one condition: do as the Librarian says. Seriously," she replied to them and stepped aside from the entrance to let them pass. This should be interesting. Maybe she should tag along and at least find out what this snark was.
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Post by Lord Hayati on Oct 11, 2010 17:43:00 GMT -5
"Okay, I'll step down... but what about the space age people on the front lawn? what about them?"
Krisseh looked back on her last remark... and it did seem a bit offensive.
"sorry, just not used to non mages coming in. We should really hand out libary passes... nah."
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Post by Goosh on Oct 11, 2010 17:58:53 GMT -5
An alarming number of things had happened since the pirates had reached Mage Manor. Fraze had joined them, a spaceship had landed, containing a hog-man. Mages had come out asking them why they were there. Argument in general ensued. Goosh had been a little too confused to grasp the entire thing, but now he sat pensively on the blarf, processing the new events.
It was not what Goosh had pictured as a quiet trip to Mage Manor.
He figured it was a guild war all over again, and war bored him. He tapped Zylaa's shoulder. "Do you want to head to the library and wait for the rest of them there? They probably just need a minute to work out all the arrangements. We're not needed for that." He could feel the tell-tale tingle that meant a couple of sparkles were blooming on his face. He hoped his voice hadn't done that angelic thing again.
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