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Cailyn starts to lift up her crossbow toward the Tengu, and then suddenly felt ready to pass out. "" she was thinking she was whispering but was rather loud. Luckily she had just started to learn about a new magical technique to purge poison from oneself. Quickly she drops her crossbow, with a heavy crack and a mumbled SORRY to wherever that bolt went. Just as quickly, well not quickly, more like fumbly, she gets out her old hawker glove, her conjuring implement. She shoves it on her hand, and performs her MAGIC... which involves shoving her glove covered finger down her throat and hoping.
"Ouch" the young woman squeaks as she is stabbed with a pin. She pulls it out and looks at it. There is a sticky glob mixed with her blood. "Oh, bother, this... is... Don't get hit by any of these!" she calls out to her friends. She already feels ready to die, but that might just be the idea of being poisoned. While her Mr. Sludge tries to hammer the bad bird to death, Cailyn notices Flori's reaction and panic shoots the nearest Tengu that shot at her friend. "There is one over here too!" she unnecessarily points out.
Cailyn was about to fire her crossbow at one of the enemies, not the woman, no, not the woman, but at one of the tengu, because well they may need the woman to talk, to confess... things... Cailyn shakes her head to clear dreams away and takes aim at the woman BUT As Vigny rushed past her she looked to the side and saw another tengu at the stairs. This one has with an open charging path to her (and Flori) which she cannot have. Her bulky rock friend clobbers together in front of that interloper and attempts to hammer it to dust.
BUt shadows got in the poor sludge knight's eyes. Hmmm, no, he doesn't have eyes. So he just missed. "We should probably move away." she tells Flori as she does just that.
"Oh..." Cailyn says with surprised memory "Its... her" she has not told anyone about her dream, nope, not a word. But her tone is rather dreamy.
Cailyn keeps going on her path to Occultist queen merchant crossbow expert librarian of leisure. fcb +1/2 mental focus
"I'll walk in front of you" Cailyn offers to Vigny, not because she wants to avoid Sprinting anywhere, especially not up stairs, but because it is simply polite to not leave anyone behind. "Spivey, you could fly as well, or stay with me and Vigny, letting helmet head scout instead."
"No" Cailyn's response held a bit more sullen than it should, probably not only due to the state of the stairs, but also in the AMOUNT of them. "Plus we can assume they know were are coming at this point, if the pert nosed--- I mean, masked assassin was any indication. So climbing that might be a very bad idea? Has anyone learned to fly yet?" she looks hopefully at her very best friend, the Mage.
Goodness, glad you made it through!
Cailyn aims at the NINJA trying not to gawk and pulls her trigger nice and slow, remembering to breath as she had been taught.
"Oh, Sir Sludge" Cailyn laments her poor mud man's predicament, while she prepares to help with her crossbow.
There is a brief flash of utter glee in Cailyn's eyes as she takes in the NINJA, but it is followed by a sickening memory of Flori's being cut down in a longhouse recently. She realizes they are both just too close to the slender figure dressed all in black! But they are not alone, or no (well no of course, they have their party, one of which is currently a six foot angry wolf, but that is not the point of the statement), Sir Sludge the Sublimely Sanctimonious erupts from the ground between the NINJA and the two defenseless damsels (yes, neither are defenseless and have murdered quite a few folks). The mud man with a jaunty feather nods to the pretty ladies, giving a sloppy but well intended grin, then turns to his enemy and ATTACKS.
Then the one maiden runs away "Come on Flori!" she suggests rather squeakily to her friend as she does so.
Cailyn sniffed Flori's cloak and sighed "I wondered why I was hungry." she then slips the old man a couple more coppers "You delivered the message with surprising ominousness, thank you sir."
"Ouch" Cailyn exclaims since her friend often underestimates the power of her elbow when used as an attention grabber. But her words spark the flame of curiosity in Cailyn's blue eyes. "Let's find out." The noble woman swishes over to the beggar, bending her knees to stoop near his gathering bin and drops two gold coins in "Were you talking to us, sir?If so, would you be so kind to elaborate?"
Never one to wallow, Cailyn links arms with her two friends and simple enjoys the day of clandestine surveillance and subtle information gathering. Cailyn helps with the subtle part, not by being subtle but by asking about everything and anything.
All while of course finding every little nook and cranny cafe, fish stand, and soup dive hole for their culinary pleasure. She is offering up a golden battered sliver of fish on a stiff cracker that is glistening in butter to Flori to try when Shunsen makes her statement about breaking in. "How would you do that?" her question is not skeptical, but eagerly interested. She even darts a looks, AFTER Flori tries the delicacy, while gripping the fan from the goblins.
Cailyn doesn't stop her massaging, but also picks up on what Spivey is suggesting. "It would be a good idea for us to split up and fill in our companions with all we've been through. One can only discuss details so much over several courses of delicious inn food. Vigny could enlighten... Sandru. Ameiko one of the rest of us..." she almost said Orchid, but decided the thin veil of suggesting partners would be seen through if she suggested Orchid would speak enough words to enlighten anyone. "... leaving two remaining with our dear Spivey. Wait... didn't we have an elf as a travelling companion?" Cailyn says with casual indifference, probably too casual to be believed.
Cailyn rubs Spivey's feet with thumb and pointer "Clearly a misunderstanding of transportation methods to grit collection ratio. We could educate, but sadly I don't see logic penetrating easily. Cheese filled pepper?" she offers the celestial one of the delicacies she is happily devouring. Between bites, mini hugs to friends, and little tangents on odd topics, Cailyn manages to tell the entire story of their visit so far, leaving the near murder of a child out of course. "So this Goti Runecaster and his horrid little bird is our next target I believe. Oh, do either of you have any idea what poison they used on this dart?" Cailyn pulled out a hanky out of her bag of many things collected, and unwrapped a dart with blue stains around the cloth. "It will let us know if the guide we were attempting to engage is simply captured or... well no longer engageable."
"It's the Helmet!" Cailyn beams getting probably too close. "Does it feel?" she thinks of Orchid's lick but then also of Vigny donning it. "pb[Probably not the most appropriate question. She thinks on that while she starts to usher the group toward the nearest tavern since they all need to eat a meal or two. Once in there she gestures for several of almost everything, then starts chatting with the locals.
"That kind of tickles" Cailyn shakes her head a little at the voice inside it. Despite the complaint, her eyes shine in eagerness to interrogate Vigny for all the details. "Asking around about a hidden guild of thieves is the best way to attract even more attention from these hidden guild of thieves. But it might be our most obvious path." she looks around the street "It is about dinner time, shall we question the bar staff of the nearest establishment?"
Cailyn has been rather distracted by almost killing a child, and then there is the running and the interesting things in the room... But finally she notices dent in the helmet and thinks 'Oh, that must have hurt'. It is then she realizes she should probably help Vigny out. Grasping her hawker's glove and tentatively touches the dented warrior with a calming warning "Touching you, don't panic."
Cailyn pauses as the others start to follow the directions of the priest. She stands above her discarded crossbow, looking at it, thinking about the bolt she sent into a young woman's back because she acted without thought, like she was in a story and... and... Cailyn sighed, picked up her crossbow, and followed with a slight run that made her out of breath in less than five seconds, but she made it to the others. At the emptiness, she fumbles out that lovely fan with the goblin drawing and fans her sweaty face, concentrating on her magic.
"Pretty... feather" she pants out like someone just kicked her in the stomach twice. "Oh! A... dart!" she leans over and nearly topples. She considers that more exercise might be a thing to consider doing some day, but shoves it aside (much like almost Pedicide). She lifts up a blowgun dart that's been treated with a sticky blue substance. "Anyone know... what this is... the blue liquid?" Her mind drifts to more of her magic, trying to read more about the object.
"I... I thought you were a bad guy..." Cailyn looks more than a little pale, still not going back to get her crossbow. Otherwise she stays behind the group a little and tries to not throw up.
Cailyn flinches as ice-blue eyes that rip guilt through the near murderer. "Við munum hjálpa" worlds stumble out of her mouth to the girl We will help before turning to Flori "We can help her, can't we? She needs to help her mother."
Cailyn sees the age more than anything and panics. Just panics. Panic in Cailyn happens to be pure silence. A shuddering kind of silence. Looking at her hand, the... Kid... Then finally panic ruptures into "I'm sorry" then she grabs her old glove, she wills the wound on the girl to heal.
"The cloaked person was fleeing the scene, suspiciously, like the spellcaster.... would, or they were fleeing a massive humanoid boulder which would make sense..." Cailyn realizes midway through her excited declaration that she might have shot a bystander and drops her crossbow then hurries to the prone form.
Cailyn makes a squeal kind of sound in excitement of finding her summoner... well, if she did find them, that is. If she didn't, the crossbow has already been fired, right after the squeal... It probably isn't a killing shot, she tells herself, and then reminds herself that she has healing spells so it will be alright.
Cailyn reloads her crossbow, while she watches the wolfid and the vigny wail on the poor prone beasty. "Flori" she asks with an inquisitive tone "These creatures, like my Sir sludge, are normally summoned by a spell caster of some kind... is there anyway to find out who and if they are close?"
"Oh, poor Sir Sludge." Cailyn sighs as her creation is brutally destroyed. Flori's suggestion about saving the priest makes sense, but rationally Cailyn assumes her friend is talking to one of the others. Instead she lines up a shot with her crossbow while she thinks about earth elementals. "I've read books about them, but the one that comes to mind is a elemental naming thesis, suggesting that summons become stronger with a Naming. Not sure if that is true, but do not name this thing, no matter your inclination." she nods sagely, and fires at Rocky.
"Was that boy furtively following us?" Cailyn asks, pointing him out to whoever was next to her, only to see him disappear and their Orchid disappearing soon after. "Oh, that cannot be good." she says unnecessarily as the temple is pounded to rumble, but her head tilts from side to side as she looks at the earth elemental. "Once when I was four, I tried my hand at sculpture, well, in mud in the back courtyard, until mother was told and that was ended right and proper... but when I did I would make the same little mud man over and over, Sir Sludge the Sublimely Sanctimonious (my maid had gotten me a dictionary so I was practicing S words)..." a rock shatters near her, so she quickly gets to the point as she pulls her leather glove out of her trinket pouch. "It looked a bit like that Big sludge." Grasping her glove, she REMEMBERS then a puffed up blob of mud and rock rises up before the much much bigger version of itself, with a sludgy feather on its head. Before it smashes into it.
Vigny either knows Cailyn very well at this point and is baiting her or is tired and didn't comprehend the amount of 'reasons' her companion could gush out. Her brain simply holds an awfully abundant amount of information, mostly reserved for legends, stories, rumors and gossip. A special section of that abundant amount is reserved for Ninja's apparently. After Cailyn regales Vigny on all the reasons ninja's are special (which goes on a WHILE), she returns (for a moment) to the other discussion. "Maybe the priests at the temple will also know why this Snorri Stone-Eye was a walking corpse instead of a merely decomposing one." She paused "Do you think Uksahkka had a hand in the ninja's presence? If she betrayed us to this guild, or other unknown enemies, this token might be another trap." Cailyn doesn't seem concerned though, as she pops a sugar covered grape in her mouth and chews slowly to relish it.
The tired and slightly singed noble's daughter flopped on her 'not as soft as she wished' bed "Ninjas?!?! Can you believe it? I've read about, them even drew them in ridiculous attempts to be artistic and... well I thought they had more than a little edged panache, all masked in slippers with sharp throwing things and smoke bombs." Cailyn twisted to her stomach and grinned with manic awe at Flori (who had the misfortune of sharing a room with her), plus anyone else attempting to have a serious conversation about What Is Next "[b]We fought Ninjas{/b]" there was a squeal accompanied with lots of foot thundering as she pounded them in delight.
Cailyn is a decent swimmer but is in (as always) heavy skirts, since they are right and proper and all. So after a split second mourning her lost owl, she says to Flori "We should probably get past these flames before we are left with no other choice than a night time bath." She also fires her magically heavier-ed crossbow at the nearest enemy still in her way.
The pretty pretty bird covered in the gore of her enemies perishes (Again) in the hail of magic stone. :)
Back on deck, after some grunt climbing, she sees the new enemies "Grave robbers, tsk tsk" Miss Vanderale admonishers as she realizes the silver chain of the lovely broach is still sticking out of her pocket, as well as her companion is charging them wearing a golden helmet of the once great and now dead (again) rich person. "Oh, fine. Cleo, kill please"
Cleo lets out her battle hoot as she fell upon the back of the head of the masked person who Vigny was tried to end like a bit of extra crap. Following up her meal with the other crap next to the glowing blue owl if the first dies too quickly.
Cailyn fires one more shot into the now sparkling cloud. "Oh, pretty" she whispers, mainly to have something to focus on other than her missed Thunk into wood.
"Oh, like this?" Cailyn listens to her friend and fires the crossbow bolt into the mist, hoping for a wet THUNK but only getting a dry one. She sends a look to Flori "I don't think that was right."
Despite the mess of mist, Cailyn felt reasonably sure she should stay exactly where she is. Hopefully the dark shape in the cloud is the bad shambling thing, not one of her friends. "Incoming!" she loudly whispers.
"Oh!" Cailyn exclaims as she sticks her head down to look. "I think we found our corpse." her head disappears, but is quickly followed be her descending to the hold (only because Orchid and Vigny are between it and her).
Cailyn's eyes shine in the wonder of it "Maybe he isn't really dead? An elaborate plot hook that will be revealed to his enemies later?" she does get out and load her crossbow.
As the others use their much more considerable might, Cailyn peers up at the body on the pile of wood. Raising her fingers she pinches the air, letting magic come, and pull the death shroud off the corpse.
As Cailyn inspects the boat with a keen eye, running her fingers across the curves to better get to know the vessel, the others pair off or go it alone. "You and I, dear Shunsen, shall brave this obstacle together."
Cailyn is slow and steady, nothing fancy, nothing strong, just even. "The sea is dangerous, little moth. My father would say. Enough ways to make you meet the Lady, both above and below, to not beg for her attention." Cailyn rows, following the other two boats "He would then flick my ear, his way of telling me to avoid the fire in my human blood to go quick... and stupid." she shrugged but smiled and offered an explanation at least for his prejudice "He was Mordant. Well, Is? I've never understood if by specifying a 'race' though mainly geographically means it means they stop being that 'race' once they leave. Does his leaving make him OnceMordant and me Half OnceMordant?" As always, Cailyn likes to talk when she does something, but at least she is doing it quietly.
"While I have no idea what a 'qayaq', my father insisted I know how to properly handle a dinghy. They have to be at least similar." the noble girl sighed a little, but her eyes held a significant fondness in them. "That is a yes, I believe, to the rest?" her questioning tone is turned toward her companions.
"Some would simply call that character." Cailyn smiles, adding it to the biography of Ulf in her mind. Then with quick delivery barrels on "They plan to burn him alive in the funeral ship in the morning. Though with Asvig being dead, I am uncertain who they are specifically. We were considering..." Cailyn looks at her companions and continues with just a minor questioning tone in her voice "Not letting that happen? Would you like to help?"
Cailyn leans forward as well, looking rather suspicious, but not in a nefarious way, just potentially in 'she drank that last drink too quickly' way. "Geographically, we would be more 'Middle-ers' since we are not from Mwangi, but I understand it is easier to label based on relative instead of absolute." Cailyn smiles brightly, just letting her thoughts settle at the surprise friend from a land that seems to want to gut them too much and too often.
"While tales such as these are lovely, truly, and I personally would delight in spread them about this Longthews, I think they are worth a little barter, in times such as these."
"And yes, I know you already provided an initial bid, I just want to know why he was on the outs with all the local merchant guilds. It's like a book without the backstory."
"Why do they burn an entire ship for a funeral? While it does seem poetic and grandiose, wouldn't it better server the survivor's interests to keep a serviceable vessel?" Cailyn normally is all for poetic and grandiose when it comes within the context of a story. When it comes to trade, she has her mother's practicality though.
She also sighs a little at already having another task, but it is a small one. "Well if we might be seeing the end of this quaint town, since we'll be disrupting a hallowed tradition, I'd like to get to know their history and tales just a wee bit more." Cailyn took a nice gulp of her drink, and picked up her plate to mingle.
Cailyn's heart is won with the signal for more food and drink. In fact she mimics the gesture to double up on the order as she plops her skirts down next the Shunsen. "A bunch of mostly shirtless muscle bound men... and women... seemed exceedingly pleased we came calling at their charming abode. Then they tried to kill us." some delicious steaming pie like meat thing was slammed down in front of her making her sigh "Hmmmm, oh and Cleo ate off a witch's face." she says as she hooks the first mouth full in with TRUE toe curling delight. She managed to chew and swallow but asking "And you?"
Cailyn's mouth firms into a line, her eyes still holding its simmer even though she sips from the cup "We didn't leave them with nothing. Everything in this place, the tools, the clothes, the food, the animals, For Abadar's sake, the building itself is well made and worth more than any one of those rings." Cailyn sighs and sips again, then sighs again "I understand." even if she doesn't like it. "I just wish you had talked to us first." even though the other woman probably knows the discussion would have been much like this with Cailyn doing her best to convince the others as well. Finally she downs the rest and then says "We should get something from the charity at least." giving Vigny one last that was softer but clearly held the sympathetic undertones of 'you are a good person'. "Excuse me" she hailed the matron "We need information. Asvig's warriors attacked us while we were travelling, which is why we are here. Also based on his reaction, was overjoyed we came to him instead of having to Hunt us, meaning he was planning even more skulduggery of our persons. Do you per chance know why?"
Cailyn gives her bloody bird a good scratch behind her neck while Cleo eats a little more and then goes POOF. "Such a good bird" she sighs as she looks around "Flori, your stone creature was lovely. Hard and heavy, the perfect summons for such a tight space!" she gushes to her friend as she works heavy unbloodied bolts out of the wall. A comfortable avarice bounces in her blue eyes at all the spoils of war. Some of what is spoiled as she works out the Skald that Vigny is saying. It is still new enough the scholar that it is not second nature. Her little frown grows deeper at every Plop into the cup. She does hold her tongue though in front of the defeated. Ruining the visage of strength is not worth the lost profit.
Cleo now has the taste of the man, which is rather unfortunate for that man, while Cailyn moves up and fires at the first one she can see. This time the thud is wet, very unwood sounding.
Cleo rips and pecks, letting the frustration of her calm little life come hooting out as she turns to the drunk man that threatened her little one. Her little one aims her now magicked crossbow and firing it at the guard that Vigny is battling. The resulting thud could be flesh or could be the wood behind the flesh.
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