[Last Time, On El WHAT?!: Our heroes beat the bloody hell out of an elven weretiger. Hooray! Now they can be rewarded, and hopefully recoup the total loss that was Nick's pair of tiger traps. But... is the terror REALLY over?] [The strangest may be yet to come, especially since Fadi appears to have a strange obsession with beheadings.] [We open on our heroes heading inside for their reward, which they hope is good enough to justify all the money Nick put into those traps. Fadi appears completely at ease with the fact that he just cut off a helpless elf^H^H^HVulcan's head, and Sophie, at least, is NOT happy with this turn of events.] [Just as Sophie is about to open her mouth, though, Harold disappears right before her eyes.] [Session... START] * Sophie does not open her mouth, in that case. She still has her sword drawn. * Nick sighs and shakes his head as Harold goes.. somewhere. * Fadi has sheathed his sword, and even put the 'peaceband' on it too. He glances back at Sophie. "You can sheathe the sword, you know." * Sophie snaps back into reality. She swings the sword once to fling the blood off of it, then resheaths it. * A light from inside the house disappears from one window and quickly reappears at the door. * Jed peers out the back door. "It's all over, then?" * Fadi nods. We stopped it alright. Some kind of.. I dunno, but it turned into a tiger. Yeah. It was some kind of pointy-eared-tiger-thing. * Sophie is silent. * Jed quirks an eyebrow. "Pointy eared tiger thing? What the hell?" Well, it was pointy-eared after it turned back from the tiger.. * Jed goes wide-eyed and steps out the door. "It was what?!" Yeah. It was a tiger, then we killed it, and then it turned into some pointy-eared guy. ..Pointy-eared. * Jed starts looking frantic. "Where? Take me to it." * Fadi looks at Nick, then Sophie, and then starts walking back to the corpse. * Nick shrugs and follows. * Sophie follows, looking down. We, uh, have the head.. * Jed stops in his tracks and says in a flat tone, "...you what? * Fadi shrugs. "I thought he wanted to see the body. If it's just the head, I got it here." He puts the pack containing the head down. ...show me. * Fadi opens the pack and pulls the pack down so the head can be seen. * Jed stares for a moment, then sighs. "Close it." * Fadi pulls it up and closes it tight. "I take it killing the thing trying to kill us was a bad idea?" * Nick regards Jed warily. ..If it makes things better, your horse is fine. Well... here's the rub. See, this guy here was an elf. Whatever else he was, he was _definitely_ an elf. Now, of course, he's an elf with a bad case of dead. Can't get much deader.. * Fadi nods and picks up the head. "So... If these elves are anything like I remember in the movies, they're pretty powerful, right?" * Sophie looks up at that. "Elf? Some kind of faerie?" Something like that. They're a natury sort. They like trees, animals, wilderness, that sort of thing. They're also clannish and VERY protective of their dead. Believe if they're not disposed of properly, they don't get recycled, or something. Yeah, okay. I guess that mak- Ah. ..Wait, so we have to *recycle* him? They've also got a bit of a thing for vengeance on those who kill their clanbrothers. He means bury. And I guessed that much when you mentioned clans. * Nick looks mildly confused. Bloody hell. So, the way I see it, y'all are probably in for one hell of a ride. That's fuckin' great. Or, if you're not lucky, you're in for _several_ hells of a ride. Maybe all nine. * Fadi chuckles. "It's nine now? Last time I checked it was only seven. Hell must be expanding." ..That's not cool. Can't we just return the body and say he was a rampaging.. tiger-thing? They won't care. You can certainly try. Dunno how well it'd work. What else can we do? Nothing. Run. But somethin' tells me they'd find us eventually. Right. So we can die, we can run and die, or we can apologize and maybe die. Well... I've heard of one man who managed to survive an elven vendetta. Do tell. Well, his name was Toturi the Black. He killed a buncha elves that decided he was desecratin' the forest. The rest of their clan wouldn't have thought much of that, of course, and he knew he was pretty well dead from that point. Some people say he went sorta crazy. Some say he was already crazy. Either way, he tracked those elves he killed back to their little hideout, where the rest of the clan was. Challenged 'em, killed half their warriors before they let up, told him to go in peace. That's pretty damn crazy. I doubt we'd be able to pull off anythin' similar. Up to you. * Sophie nods. Just sayin', sometimes ya gotta go for the throat. I would just as soon prefer go somewhere far away and take my chances. Speaking of getting far away, how about that reward? It's, of course, possible that we leave it behind and let the elves sort it out. They don't have thumbprinting, do they? And even so, I'm wearing gloves. * Jed frowns. "They've got magic that'll tell 'em who the killer is. Don't rightly know how much I should reward ya, considerin' all the trouble ya done brought down." ..That's not right, though. Hey, we got rid of your monster. You can't just wuss out! Well, ya asked us to get rid of it, and we got rid of it. * Jed turns away. "Go put the body outside the fence, and leave the head." * Sophie grumbles bitterly. "Don't you have any sense of compassion at all?" Man's gotta keep his word, that's what I always say. Go put the body back. I'll have somethin' ready for ye. * Fadi eyes Sophie. "Don't talk to me about compassion. Com'on Nick." He starts walking to the body. ..No, man. We gotta bury it. Don't be buryin' it. Like I said, it's gotta be disposed of proper like, and only elves know how. * Sophie stays where she is. "You're right. No sense in bringing up compassion to a bloody murderer." They'll come for the body, so don't make 'em work to get it. ..Ngh. Fine. * Fadi ignores Sophie. "Exactly." This still remains uncool, though. * Nick starts heading off towards the body. Duh it's not cool. But it's the way they do shit. * It takes several minutes to get the elf, slim as he looks, outside the fence with the head placed in his lap. * Just as the three are returning from the somewhat bloody job, a girlish scream comes from the massive stable, followed by a horse's terrified scream. * Fadi curses. "Now what?" Probably another freaking tiger-thing. * Nick pulls out his sword and stomps back to the stable. * Fadi runs back to the stable. * Sophie, being closest to the stable, gets there first, and finds a larger than average riding horse doing its best to trample a small girl of asian appearance. * Just a second later, Jed is there, pulling at the door to that particular enclosure. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! * Chiaki backs away from the horse as fast as she can scoot. * Chiaki looks terrfied. * Sophie runs up to the horse and tries to calm it. Okay, what the hell? * Jed gets the door open just as Sophie vaults over it, and immediately Sophie's expertise goes to work. * Chiaki gets to her feet quickly and brushes the hay off her rumpled uniform and glances around the room in confusion and apprehension. * Jed dashes in and begins helping Sophie calm the horse, and between the two of them, it's a simple task. Soon the girl is able to get out from under the poor thing. * Fadi folds his arms and looks down at the girl. * Sophie calms the horse and, when she's sure Jed has it under control, turns to the new girl. "Hullo..." She pauses, then says. "My word, you're from earth, aren't you?" Please tell me you're not going to turn into a tiger. If she does... * Chiaki still looks frightened, but she manages to speak, "N-north? Tiger? What are you talking about? Where am I?" Welcome to a really big change in your life. * Nick sheathes the short sword. "Tigers are really, really big cats. Lots of teeth, lots of stripes." He makes appropriate hand gestures to show how long and tall one is. Where the hells did you come from, girl? * Fadi smacks Nick on the head. "I think she's asking why she'd turn into a tiger." You tryin' to steal one of my horses? Ow! Bloody hell. Well... if not from earth, you're deffinately not from around here, are you? * Chiaki is a petite and rather pretty schoolgirl, as can be assumed from her disheveled summer uniform. She has light brown eyes and red-tinted black hair that falls slightly past her shoulders. In her hands, she is tightly clutching a black schoolbag. * Nick stumbles forward as the sunglasses fall down over his eyes. I-I don't know. I...don't remember. Great, just like us. * Chiaki glances at Sophie. "Earth? Yes, how could I be from anywhere else?" * Sophie gestures and lets the surroundings speak for themselves. * Nick just stands there, pushing the sunglasses back off his face. * Chiaki glances around the stables again and still looks confused. "I'm not sure I understand. Where am I?" Well, I'm Sophie Asher, from Liverpool. Over there is Nick the Thief and Fadi the Barbarian. * Fadi coughs. I have a last name, you know. Likewise. Fadi the Fighter. * Fadi snerks. Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Chiaki. Chiaki Kusanagi. Nick the.. uh, Creative Redistributor. Really, though, Fadi Al-Sabir. And I'm Nick Anderson. It's...nice to meet all of you. * Chiaki smiles a little at Sophie. "Thanks for saving me from that horse. I thought I was going to be trampled for sure." Can we, uh, talk somewhere it doesn't smell? He was just scarred. You must've startled him. * Chiaki nods. Whatcha talkin' about boy? It don't smell in here. Well yeah. A girl appearing in the middle of a horse's stall would freak the horse out, wouldn't it? ..Uh-huh. * Chiaki glances curiously at everyone's clothing and armor. So, what's your name? Chiaki. Chiaki... * Chiaki smiles the best she can, though she looks like she's still recovering from some shock. "Chiaki Kusanagi." So...are all of you from around here? Whereever here is... We're from Earth. Sophie acts like she's God, but you'll get used to it. I'm from Liverpool, England. * Sophie eyes Nick. "And they don't particularly like me because I see ethical problems with killing and stealing, which is completely lost on them." Hey, he attacked us first. Killing and stealing? * Chiaki suddenly looks nervous again. Besides, I was taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It wasn't a bad thing. As you can see. Hey, if something tries to kill me, I sure as hell am going to try and kill it back. Well, eh-heh. Hopefully you won't get used to *that*. And if it stops trying to kill you, you're going to continue to try to kill it back. Can we have this little ethics debate later and get away from the smell now? * Fadi shrugs. "It was pretty dead when it stoped trying to attack me." * Jed sighs and goes about his business. Yes. You made quite certain of that. * Nick throws up his hands and heads out. "C'mon, new girl." Stubborn as a mule. * Fadi heads out with Nick. * Chiaki glances at the others, then follows Nick outside. * Sophie follows after, shaking her head. * Chiaki falls in next to Sophie. "You said you're from England?" * Sophie nods. "That's right. Although I've been living in America for a little while." Hey, horse-guy! Oh...I'm from Japan, but I was supposed to go on an exchange trip to America next year. * Jed leads a horse out from the stable. "Yes?" Where is everyone else from? America, land of the free, brave, and capitalists. * Fadi laughs. Now, where's our reward? * Sophie nods. "Facinating place. They call chips 'fries' there. It's amusing." * Nick actually has to hold back a laugh as he realizes what was just said. * Chiaki smiles. French fries, no less. I know several world-class French chefs who would find the idea absurd. Now, see, it's the rest of the world that's out of sync.. but we'll discuss that later. Yeah. And we don't call our money a weight denomination. * Jed frowns and leads three horses over to the small group. * All three horses are saddled and ready to go. ..Wow, thanks. * Fadi looks over at the horses and whistles. "Nice." So, where is this, exactly? * Jed frowns darkly and mutters, "Yeah, well, I figured you'd want to start out soon. Now, even. " Now, there's three of us now and six later.. I guess we can all double up. * Sophie mounts up onto the best one. "Sounds like a jovial idea to me." * Thundar shoulders that horse out of the way and stares down at Sophie. * Nick walks over to a horse. "..Now, where's the ignition?" Where are we going? * Fadi smirks. "I think Thundar likes ya." * Chiaki blinks and still looks confused. * Sophie looks at Thundar and smiles. Even better. * Jed sighs. "Well, I hadn't intended it, but he'll probably be useless for any other purpose now. * Sophie keeps smiling. No complaints here. Y'all might wanna stop inth city to get supplies. I put some money inth saddlebags. * Nick glances back at Chiaki. "..What, you want to come with us? Even after that 'killing and stealing' bit?" * Chiaki looks up at Nick, startled. "I-I don't know...but I don't know what else to do." * Sophie moves the saddle from the first horse over to Thundar. "Perhaps you should come with us. You may ride with me." She doesn't have a choice. Being with us is better than bein' out here alone. * Nick shrugs. "There's an extra horse." * Fadi mounts up. "Man, this'll hurt my butt in the morning." * Nick gingerly tries to mount one of the free horses. * Jed sighs a little and does Sophie a favor and re-saddles the other horse. I wonder about that. By the way, Chiaki? Yes? * Sophie holds her palm out towards Chiaki. The one with the Auryn. "Would you perchance happen to have one of these, as well?" * Chiaki blinks at Sophie, studying the symbol on her palm, then glances down at her own and widens her eyes in surprise. She holds it up to Sophie. I don't think I had this before... Nor have the rest of us. * Nick fidgets slightly. What does it mean? Hey, guys? * Chiaki turns to face Nick. I'm, uh, going to head off. Something I need to take care of in town.. I'm not entirely sure, mys... oh lovely. *** Rowyn is on IRC It's not illegal, Miss Priss. * Fadi grins. "Sure it isn't." * Chiaki clutches her bag under one arm and clambers onto the saddle of her horse with some difficulty. * Nick grins slightly. "Though I might have stolen her heart.." And, with that, he nudges the horse towards the town. * Chiaki settles awkwardly into the saddle and manages to stuff her schoolbag into one of the saddlebags. * Sophie mutters after he's gone, "I bet." Um, I've never really ridden a horse before. That's okay, neither have I. Oh? Perhaps I can teach you. Back at home, it was among my favorite activities. Give me a good car over a horse anyday. * Chiaki smiles gratefully. "Thanks, Sophie." * Sophie smiles back. "Certainly." * Nick manages, amazingly enough, to tell which end of the horse is front and which is back, and actually gets it headed back to the city. I think we should be getting back as well so we can get ready to head out. * Chiaki nods. "I'll follow you as well as I can." * Sophie nods. "Quite." [Session... END]