Return of the Emblem Chapter Ten: Converging Destinies

[scorri]

Marella blinked. "I... don't really know actually. I assumed you did. I suppose that heading up to the deck can't hurt. Worst case, we go and find we're supposed to be somewhere else." She shrugged. "If you're ready, lets go then."

[Eail]

"Yeah, Raquel will probably still be up there. Guess we should just stick with her until it's time to leave."

While the duo were walking up to the deck a thought crossed Zach's mind. "Umm, Mar? Are you gonna stay with us? I know you don't really have a reason to... but I'd like it if you did." He shyly asked

[scorri]

Marella shrugged. "Well, I don't really have any reason not to stay either. Besides, I like this group. I figure I may as well stick with you guys for now at least. You were kind enough to rescue me from that sinking ship. I should at least stay with you guys to repay that debt." She grinned at him. "And hey. I want to stay here too."

[Eail]

A smile formed on Zach after Marella spoke. "I'm glad, I didn't want to lose my..." he trailed off. 'What is she? Can I still call her my friend after last night? Man this stuff is confusing.'

"Well I'm glad you're staying, plus I certainly want you around to watch my back in a fight, it's really rare to see someone as good are."

[Phoenix]

Someone Broke My Stride

The girl got down which made things considerably easier for Luca. As soon as Luca began his jump, he saw another problem emerging and he knew from the get-go that this one wasn't going to be as easy to get around. Once his hooves hit the ground again, on the other side of that girl, he began to slow down progressively to keep from throwing Nadya and arced around to buy himself some stopping room. He avoided the wagon that had driven onto his path by about three feet and snorted in annoyance at the large wooden thing. Finally off the ship and there was still no room to run wild. This was all wrong ...

"Whoa, where are you goin' nomad?" the wagon's driver questioned. He glanced back behind her and the horse and toward the ship they'd somewhat cleared a path from. Luca knew the man with the reins on those other horses was the one responsible for the wagon's presence so immediately neighed at him and stomped his feet on the ground a few times in protest. "Uhh ..."

[-Cynthia-]

<"Stop!"> Nadya called out to Luca, although he seemed to have stopped on his own anyway. "Just out for a ride, he was gettin' antsy after bein' on a ship for too long. Sorry about the disturbance," Nadya said, waving her hand dismissively.

[Snowy_One]

"HEY!" cried out Tia. "You almost trampled me with your stupid horse! And you sent my tomes flying everywhere! If any of them got destroyed you're going to have to pay for each and every one of them!" she said before going over to pick one up which had hit the ground hard enough to split the spine. "Look! A split spine! And that's just the first one!"

[Phoenix]

She's On A Horse

The driver sighed. "This isn't the wilds where you can just go wherever you want as fast as you want; there are other people to consider," he replied, sounding a bit more angry once the shock had worn off.

Luca wasn't liking the tone of the man's voice alone so neighed and stomped some more, causing the man to lean away some. The mage girl soon cried out which got the driver's attention. The driver considered just going about his business and driving off as the girl came over. Luca began ignoring the driver too and glanced at the approaching girl. She had a bad tone too; what did she want, he wondered? He avoided killing her. Wasn't that enough? Or maybe she wanted to give gold to Nadya as thanks for not killing her. That seemed more likely and reasonable so he assumed that for now and waited for Nadya to negotiate for the gold.

[-Cynthia-]

"Neither of ya had any permanent injuries- if ya want me to pay for anythin', get a judge," Nadya declared before taking Luca and steering him off back towards the docks at a quick trot.

[Snowy_One]

"Oh no you don't!" said Tia, picking up one of the unharmed tomes. She then quickly opened up one of the flasks and started to cast, pulling the water out and forming it into a small sphere before quickly firing it at Nadya's head!

[-Cynthia-]

The sphere of water soaked Nadya's face and clothes but did little to halt her retreat back to the other members of the group. Never saw someone so upset about not bein' hit. she sighed to herself, moving her wet hair out of her eyes.

Edited January 25, 2013 by -Cynthia-

[Click This]

Mao had barely stepped onto the docks when she was met with a scene not but a few dozen feet away from her. Peering over the crowd of people, it seemed somebody had nearly gotten run over by a horse. It was so common at home that she had considered writing a dissertation on dockyard safety. Concerned for the safety of those involved, she pushed through the crowd of people in front of her. Stepping into the clearing opened up by the horse (the people had backed off quite some at this point), she was met with a bizarre scenario. A nearby wagon driver looked frightened out of his mind, there were rather expensive looking books everywhere, and there was an angry mage firing off spells at what she assumed was the person and horse that had nearly killed the mage. As fascinating as the situation was, her merchant mind quickly took over. She could understand why the mage was pissed off, but she knew the types of collateral damage a simple fight did in a similar scenario. A angry spellcaster would be ten times worse. She didn't want any boats destroyed in the harbor --especially not her own or anybody's she happened to know. People had a vested interest in having things not destroyed, however cool it would be, including herself. Mentally crossing her fingers, she stepped out to intervene, hoping she wouldn't be pummeled by a barrage of spells by doing so.

"What the hell are you doing!? Are you a terrorist!?"

Edited January 25, 2013 by Click This

[Snowy_One]

"What? NO!" exclaimed Tia, grabbing another book and waving it at the newcomer. "Do you see this? A copy of Saliasa's Insights into Earth Magic! First edition too! This tome deals with the mixtures of various soils and liquids in magic and it cost me over seventy gold to get this! And look! It got knocked into a mud puddle! It's ruined now and she's just riding away without even offer to pay! I should get a judge for her, but I don't even know her name so how can I get a court summons?"

[scorri]

Marella grinned at Zach. "Well, you're quite the fighter too. I'd love to see what you can manage to do at full strength and not limited to a staff." As they reached the deck, she reached over and softly squeezed his hand. "And I'm glad I'm staying too. I wouldn't want to lose the connections I've made here either."

[Click This]

A... A judge? Mao chortled a bit.

"Alright, so you're not a terrorist. Still, nobody's going to hear a petty case like that. You'd have a better case if you were a terrorist. I don't know too much about the rare books market, but you really shouldn't be carrying what you call expensive books like that in a port, of all places. Anybody could knock you over and do the same thing. Nay, it was only a matter of time." Pausing for a moment, Mao reached down and picked up a few books for her. "Look, I'll help you with the books; I'm sure somebody who's good with books can fix em up good. It's not something to get your panties in a knot over."

[Snike]

Axel frowned, an expression that definitely wouldn't be noticed by the company at hand. "... It isn't prudent, but I can handle myself fine. Besides, I don't have the luxury of taking time off to make a full recovery, even if I wanted to. Anyways, more to the point, I'm not about to pass up an opportunity to settle a debt. Speaking of which, who drug me out of the blast? I owe them the most."

It was at this point that Eberhardt made a snide remark about suicide bombing.

"Yes," Axel responded unironically, "Evidently I'm not very good at the 'suicide' part, though. I'm not keen on working on that part, though, so I doubt I'll ever go pro." He would've ribbed his coworker more, but Raquel's mention of dead allies sobered the atmosphere.

"...Who?" the lancer finally asked, looking away from the merchant and most certainly away from Veronika. It was just wonderful how fast an escort mission could turn into a funeral march. Well, hopefully he didn't know the victims too well.

[Snowy_One]

Tia brushed off another book, grimacing as she noticed bruised pages from the ground upon it. "Doug's guide to the thermodynamics of magic, 50 gold." she said, obviously pained as she picked up another. "Least my copy of 'Magic and Emotions' survived. That woman dealt about four hundred gold worth of damage with that little stunt!" she gave an exasperated sigh as she slumped down to her knees. "That was all the money I earned that I spent on these books. I had so many I couldn't find a big enough bag to carry them all... That's why they were exposed and... *sigh* At least about six of my books got out unharmed. My name is Tia by the way, water mage extrodinar!"

[Click This]

"Name's Mao, Mao Ehrendott. Merchant by trade. Nice to meet you." She handed her the books she picked up, which were mostly intact. They had graced the ground with their presence rather than the large puddle of muddy sea water some other books fell into.

"Well I have quite some time to kill before they send a boat with my, ahem, horse and belongings. Might be worth a try finding that girl and explaining the situation, hmm? She went off in a hurry, but I'm fairly sure she's still around here. People on horses tend to be easy to find."

[Snowy_One]

"Yes. If you would be willing to help me find her again, that would be great! I simply can't afford to rebuy all these books and I need them for my magical studies." she said, trying to smile as she compacted her pile of books into a small stack. "Would you mind carrying half of them? I'm developing book-chin from having to carry so many all the time."

[Click This]

"Sure, I'll help you with a few books." Mao adjusted her tricorn hat with a quick tug before taking half of the books with her left hand. Being a bit lazy, she let the stack of books rest on the hilt of the smallsword strapped to her waist to alleviate the weight. "I'm no detective, but let's try heading back towards the ships, but be on your guard. She might have friends and they might not be friendly. I have no love for dock fights like the one you tried to start, y'know?"

[Eail]

Zach squeezed Marella's hand back "Trust me, with this group you'll get to see me fight before long. We tend to lead a dangerous but somehow interesting life." Turning to smile at the shorter girl he continued "How about we go see what Kat's doing, I see her over there by the bow with Volga."

'Nobody else I care for dies. I won't allow that to happen, I'll give up my very life if that's what it takes to keep them safe....'

[-Cynthia-]

Veronika

"The people who helped you after the explosion were Chelsea, Amon, Zel, and myself. Sophia and John are dead," Veronika answered Axel curtly. Amon's leaving, Zel's betrayal, and the deaths of Sophia and John were not subjects she wished to discuss in great detail, so she left her answer short and simple.

Nadya

Nadya arrived at the bottom of the ramp, somewhat dried off from the wind and the sun, but still uncomfortably wet. "Anyone got a towel or blanket or somethin' I can borrow? This port has wild water mages runnin' around," she called up the rest of the group.

[Snowy_One]

"Hello. Water mage here. If we're by the docks, I am going to be a lot stronger as I'll have a lot of innate water to work with as opposed to small flasks. My magical potency should increase by at least fifty percent simply due to the lack of a need to saturate in... right. You're not a mage. You don't understand what I'm saying. Sorry. You are right though. Besides, all we need is a name to sic the guards on them to bring them to court."

[Click This]

Mao would have facepalmed right then and there if she wasn't holding Tia's books. "Hey, if you're still looking to sue them, I'm all for it. If you can pay the legal fees, it's all good." She wasn't familiar with legal proceedings in this city, but she guessed that if a trial dragged out, it'd cost a pretty penny that Tia didn't have. In truth, if she was able to take that woman to court, she really was all for it. It would be more than amusing.

Scanning through the crowd, she finally spotted the sole mounted person at the bottom of a ship's gangplank. Playing the neutral party, she waved her free hand to flag her attention.

"Hail! This girl here wants to pursue litigation. You might want to do something about it!"

Edited January 25, 2013 by Click This

[-Cynthia-]

Nadya looked dubiously at the mage from before and the new girl. "Ya don't look like a guard," she said, looking the newcomer over casually. "Ya ain't gonna get a penny outta me, so stop tryin'. I've seen much better scams than this one- ya drop your books, it's your problem if they get ruined," she replied to them simply before heading back up the ramp, hoping the crane would show up or something and this would all go away.