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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 24, 2010 2:10:18 GMT -5
Jerome continued on with his exclamation about Stamarians while Vic made himself comfortable, while the others seemed to sigh. Had they heard this often?
"Haven't I often told you guys about the one trait that, without which, a Stamarian cannot be a good person?" he asked.
Roas nodded once. "Yes, you've been known to do that, Jerome," he replied, his voice almost flat in its tone.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 24, 2010 2:20:45 GMT -5
Curiosity overpowered common sense and thumped foreboding upon the head long enough for Vic to blurt out "What trait is that?"
A moment later, common sense reinstated itself and he was quick to realize that he may have just made a horrendous mistake, depending on what the man said next...
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 24, 2010 2:29:32 GMT -5
Jerome stepped over and slung an arm companionably around Roas' shoulder, much to the other man's annoyance. "Why don't you tell our wounded friend here what that one trait is, Roas?" he suggested with a grin.
Roas did not lose his stony countenance, despite humoring his more lighthearted compatriot. "You've often expressed the opinion, Jerome, that the only good Stamarians..."
Though the actions were swift and sudden, Devon, Llane, and Ker did not even flinch as Jerome and Roas suddenly lifted up their pistols, aiming them right at the wounded guard's chest and squeezed the triggers twice. The reports were loud, and left their ears ringing, but they otherwise showed no sign of any discomfort--Jerome didn't even lose his friendly grin.
"... are dead Stamarians," Roas finished coldly.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 24, 2010 2:45:00 GMT -5
Vic didn't even have enough time to react as the bullets punctured his chest, he slipped from the place he'd been sitting and crumpled onto the ground, his eyes glassing over as his lifeblood slowly seeped outwards.
"Light save me...." He whispered before breathing his last.
In the far distance, soaking happily in the crystal clear pool, Alexis fancied she could hear a gun report on the edge of her hearing. A feint smile crept over her lips, wondering absent-mindedly if poor Vic had run into a hunter of some type.
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 25, 2010 4:51:34 GMT -5
Jerome removed his arm from Roas' shoulders as the two of them checked their weapons and reloaded them. Neither of them paid much attention as Vic sputtered a final phrase and succumbed to death.
"Well, now that that's done, let's bury him and get a move on," Jerome said, flicking the safety on for his pistol and stowing it away inside his own coat. "Devon, Llane, you take care of that. Make sure your robot's ready for action, Roas."
The operative grunted noncommittally as he put away his own gun, while Devon jumped down off the roof to help Llane remove the guard's corpse. The man's shirt was stripped from his body and used to mop up the blood and stem the wounds, and then they hauled him off to another part of the copse.
“So who were the Stamarians transporting?” Ker asked, puffing his cigarette. He was leaning up against the side of the transport now.
“Some chick that’s good with illusions, and the kid was talking like she was some horrible person, like a Korin,” Jerome replied. “I think its our Witch.”
“’Witch’?” the two heard Roas ask.
“Yeah, our Witch. Some Stamarian from Allondell jumped their ship close to the time we started acting up,” Jerome said. The man was thirty-seven years of age, and had seen the start of the founding. Roas had only joined a couple years before, long after she had gone missing. “They say she went back and got captured. Not sure, but I imagine the higher-ups would like to know.”
A Stamarian betrayed them? Roas thought bemusedly. Hell, they can’t even be trusted among themselves.
“So, Vister might be back around, huh?” Ker said, taking another drag and puffing out a cloud of smoke. “Today’s gonna be interesting.”
Ten more minutes passed, and Roas finished checking his modified Constructor, finding nothing wrong with it. Llane and Devon returned, putting their equipment back before getting into the back of the truck with Roas and Ker.
“Well, let’s go find ourselves a Witch, boys,” Jerome said, grinning. He slammed the doors to the transport shut, leaving them in darkness that soon disappeared when the onboard lights started up with the transport’s engine.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 25, 2010 15:14:40 GMT -5
In the stillness of the small pool, something...disturbed the quiet peacefulness that Alexis had been enjoying for the past few minutes.
An engine, some sort of vehicle. The sound was coming from up towards the road she'd traveled on. Her tired mind thought back to the road, had she left anything behind to mark her trail to this small wood?
Her eyes quickly went to the small fire, upon which the remains of her bloody clothes lay. An exasperated groan escaped her lips, yes, she had left a trail of sorts. She had been covered in blood, most of it the guard's. Though without shoes, some of the blood had been hers from her raw feet.
But...a vehicle moving relatively fast might not even see the blood trail. And she was in no shape to run, especially from a vehicle. If it was a Korin vehicle and it found her, it wouldn't be so bad. And if was a Stamarian vehicle, she was most likely as good as dead anyways.
"So I might as well finish my bath. Running isn't going to help..." She sighed and closed her eyes, waiting and listening, thinking on a plan to escape if they found her.
Part of her contemplated hopping out of the pool and gathering up the mismatched clothing from the pack that would make up her outfit now that her prison garb was ash. She quickly dismissed the idea, however. If she truly had to fight in her condition, she'd need every advantage she had. And even she had to admit, the scars upon her body were fairly horrifying, combined with her naked form, it might give her a small but important advantage against most enemies. And if they were Korin...well, then she could dress in the safety of friends.
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 27, 2010 19:01:46 GMT -5
"Huh? Feel's like we're slowing down," Ker noted, standing up from the wall seat of the transport. "I'll go check it out."
He opened up the door to the cab and stepped through. "Oi, Jerome, what's going on?" he started, before the others were cut off when the door shut automatically.
"Think its a problem?" Llane asked, getting only a grunt from Roas.
"Who knows? Anything's a problem in Verivia these days?" Devon said. They jolted in the seats slightly as the transport came to a stop.
The door opened immediately afterwards. "Oi, Roas, you got a new task!" Jerome called as Ker stepped back into the container.
"What is it?" Roas asked as he stood up and entered the cab himself. Jerome was leaning with his arms against the top of the wheel, one of them pointing over the dash.
"Think we may have found 'er," he explained. Roas followed his pointing hand and saw immediately. Against the almost bone-white dirt road, dark splotches could be seen marching down it before cutting off the road and into the sparse, chewed up expanse. They looked to be headed towards a nearby copse.
"Bloody tracks," Roas noted, causing Jerome to nod.
"Go get your 'bot ready and follow 'em," he ordered the younger man. "Me and the others will go on ahead and take that prison transport."
Roas nodded and turned to leave, stopping when Jerome spoke up again as he was going through the threshold.
"Oh, and Roas?"
"What?"
"She is from Allondell. So she'll look the part. Don't let that get in the way of your thinking."
Roas made an annoyed sound in his throat and left, saying nothing else. The transport's loading doors opened up while he got into his mech and powered it up. The panels on the control dash lit up as he sat himself in, allowing the canopy to close down on him and the Constructor to reach its standing height. Gunning the throttle, the machine rumbled forward on its treaded feet, and he saw Devon make a salute with two fingers as he exited down the ramp that had extended.
He maneuvered the mech around the heavy transport until he found spotted the trail--if he took it slow, it'd be easy enough to follow it. He flipped on the communicator. "Go on ahead, Jerome," he said through it. "I'll take care of this."
"Got it. I'll see'ya when I see ya!" Jerome called back as the transport rumbled to life and began moving again. Roas watched it for a moment before punching the throttle again, moving along the bloody trail they'd found. Wouldn't be long before he reached the copse--he just hoped this woman stayed there and didn't keep moving.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 27, 2010 19:24:35 GMT -5
A mech...that could be bad. Depending on what it was. Alexis wasn't a good judge of the mechanical contraptions, she'd rarely even run into them before her decade in prison. She closed her eyes and concentrated, using her magical abilities to determine how many were coming to the wood.
With a small fluttering of hope she realized that only one mind was approaching her location, most likely the mech pilot. That lessened the chances of him (she was almost sure the pilot was male) being a Stamarian soldier. But the cold, distrustful part of her said that maybe she didn't want to meet this man.
She sat in the pool for a few precious seconds, and then came to a compromise. With a quick splash she crossed the pool to her pack that lay next to the fire and withdrew the guard's heavy pistol from the pack's innards. Then, carefully, she swam back to her original location, noting the nearby rocks and trees to which she could take cover if the mech turned out to be armed. She couldn't fool the mech, but she was reasonably confident of at least confusing the pilot and causing his aim to falter long enough for her to find cover.
She set the pistol on a nearby rock, and then sank down into the water until only her neck and head showed above it's dark surface. Her blue eyes stared with apprehension at the area where the mech sounded to be coming from. She readied her already weary mind for a fight if need be, but secretly hoped that this newcomer was a friend, rather than a foe.
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 27, 2010 20:00:40 GMT -5
It wasn't long before Roas reached the clearing--the moment the Constructor got within range, it picked up a single substantial life form on its on-board radar unit. He had to crush a couple saplings on the way in since his machine was way too large to squeeze through, but those were the breaks.
Spotting the woman was simple enough; she was watching him from the pool in the middle of the copse's clearing. Obviously, she heard him coming. Studying her for a bit, he saw that she was indeed a Stamarian, giving credence to Jerome's speculations. Of all the times he has to be right, he thought irritably as he flipped on the loudspeaker.
"You there," he said, projecting his voice through the mech. "You're that Witch, Vister, right?"
Korinus knew he wasn't stupid enough to step out of the confines of the mech to initiate communications with a possibly-hostile mage.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 27, 2010 20:12:54 GMT -5
A witch? It had been a long time since anyone called her that. Though it had been a nickname used by both sides in the conflict. So either way it wasn't exactly proof of his loyalty. But she detected more curiosity and annoyance from the pilot, rather than hostility.
It was a decidedly male voice, from the oddly shaped machine. Inside she felt a pang of fear spike through her. She wasn't terribly fond of the male gender at the moment. But...it couldn't be helped, and he hadn't hurt her.
She clamped down on the fear, and nodded her head once, "That's me." She replied with a tired half-smile. "who're you? And who do you serve?"
Her body tensed slightly, waiting for the answer. If Korin, then she would relax and get dressed, sure in the knowledge that she'd found safety at last.
If Stamarian, however...That would be a far different story.
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 27, 2010 20:35:12 GMT -5
Looks like Jerome was right. Well, finding Vister may prove beneficial for the local cells, at least until the core of the organization called demanded her to return to the unconquered kingdoms. He didn't relax, though. "My name's Roas," he replied, identifying himself. "Roas D. Kateran. I'm with the Korin."
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 27, 2010 22:30:30 GMT -5
Alexis' body lost some of the tension that had been building up within, he was Korin. She had finally met someone who didn't want to kill her...well, was less likely to want to kill her, at any rate.
She chuckled softly, closing her eyes for a moment. "Roas...a nice name. Roas, I'm Alexis. Alexis Vister. A pleasure to meet you."
Her smile grew slightly, "Please forgive my attire, or lack thereof. The pool was very inviting, and if you were Stamarian, I wanted a bath before I died."
She beckoned at her bag, "Do you have any objection to me getting dressed? Honestly, just because you're Korin and I'm former Korin doesn't mean you trust me. And I'll fully understand if you'd rather I not move, or answer some questions first. Besides,"
She winked once, "This water really is lovely."
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 28, 2010 22:28:23 GMT -5
"Former Korin," Roas' voice came back flatly, before he could even keep his mouth shut. His hands were still tight on the Constructor controls. "The others never said you bailed out on us."
Suddenly, finding this woman didn't seem like the best of ideas. She betrayed Stamaria to work with the Korin, then disappears and says she left the Korin, and now she's returned to Cher Plek for some reason... what the hell was going on? What's your game, Vister? he thought, growing wary.
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Post by Steinerman on Jun 28, 2010 22:44:49 GMT -5
Alexis felt the cold uncertainty radiate off of Roas. And her own body reacted in much the same manner, tensing up once again as his emotions became wary.
She rolled her eyes, "I say former Korin, Roas. Because I don't know what to expect from the Korin. I've been in prison for almost a decade. That's a long time to be tortured, for all you know I could have been broken and brainwashed into being a spy. Thus...I don't know what my status is in the Korin."
Her smile lessened, growing wistful. "I came here because as of ten years ago, there were people in Cher Plek that I could call friends."
Her eyes stared dully at the mech, it truly was disconcerting, speaking to a machine. "you can get out of your machine, if you'd like, Roas. I don't bite." She ended with a hopeful smile.
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Post by The Rising Dragon on Jun 28, 2010 23:50:06 GMT -5
"Not a chance," Roas said tritely, growing irritated. "Hurry up and get your clothes on, we need to get moving. Stamaria's going to take notice that its missing a prison transport soon."
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