Null's Game

[Idran1701]

"...you've met my mother?" This takes her off guard even more than his knowledge of the rest of the group, stepping out of the way as he heads out of the back room, doing her best not to throw the twins a look. She isn't exactly in a mood to be compared to her sisters now of all times, but this minor revelation has thrown her for a bit of a loop, a bit of fluster starting to creep into her tone. "I...oh yes, I'm sorry; Triya is right, I never asked your name. How rude of me, sir."

[Visavis]

"Calamity told 'em about us? ..Huh," muttered Rasmus, mostly to himself. His attention, however, was drawn to the giant snow elf in the room. His eyes widen, and his mouth opens to a slight gape.

"Oh. Oh. That, everyone, that's Trask Icehammer," he murmured with no small amount of reverence.

[Shinigori V2]

"Tagger." The old man says simply. "You've already met my granddaughters, Lil and Eli."

"Uh, that's Eli and Lil." Eli corrects, and it quickly turns into a squabble between the twins over who should get top billing. Observing for a moment, Tagger frowns, turning back to the group. "Yes, well. I'm sorry they disturbed you."

[Idran1701]

Kyrie bows her head to Tagger, still doing her best to ignore the kids' nonsense, grateful that they've at least found something else to argue over. "How do you know my family, if I may ask? I don't recall hearing of you before, sir, shameful as it is to say. Business concerns, I assume?"

[Shinigori V2]

"She was looking to buy some good from us, though we couldn't quite come to an agreement." Tagger says simply.

[Visavis]

And then there was Rasmus, suddenly standing next to the giant Snow Elf.

"'scuse me sir, I'm a big fan of your work and I was wonderin' if I could maybe hopefully get an autograph from ya?"

[Shinigori V2]

The rather large elf strokes his beard in thought. "Autograph, boy? I s'pose I could do you that. What's a son of the snow doing in dragon country?"

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know, myself." Another voice says from the far end of the room. A tall, wirey dragon with green scales steps out from a workshop door, making sure to close it behind him. He's clad in workman's clothes, though they're very nice for what they are, and a brown apron over them. He adjusts his glasses slightly, frowning. "I'm sorry, but if you're looking for service, I'm booked all through the week."

[Idran1701]

Tagger's comment takes Kyrie a bit off guard, a light smirk as she keeps still beside him, only a brief look over towards Rasmus's display. "My mother, not coming to an agreement? There must be a story there, mm? Though...for another time, I imagine."

"Oh, although you might be able to help us on our own reason for being here. If I had a pixogram, would it be possible to find the pixograph to create it?" She adds just a slight pause before continuing, her ears standing as she hangs behind a little behind him. "Or would that be beyond what's possible? I can't imagine it would be an easy task..."

[Shinigori V2]

"Your mom wanted cloth like what my clothes're made of. You guys aren't allowed to have it." Lil says bluntly.

"You mean, if you have the product, can you use it to find the box that made it?" The dragon says. "No, unfortunately the result has nothing to link it the maker."

[Visavis]

"Oh, I was their guide around Frostbyte," Rasmus replied with a thumb jerked back at the rest of the group. "Then I had to go with them, and we ended up here. So I can have an autograph? Great! How about we.." He paused to glance to the table and grabbed the nearest sheet of paper that looked blank. Only as he lifted it did Rasmus notice the schematics on the other side. "Can you sign th--oh, I thought it was.. what is this, an airship?"

[Shinigori V2]

As soon as Rasmus asks his silly question, he's suddenly the most popular man in the room. In a flash, Eli sheds her outer clothing, appearing next to her sister wearing a suit not unlike her twin, though with a slightly different design and pattern. The Forest Elves both have shortbows nocked and aimed at his head, the Snow Elves have their hand on their weapons--Even Trask's hand rests on the handle of the large hammer hanging from his belt. The tall, wirey dragon has pulled a pair of pistols, and the younger female dragon bursts out from yet another room with some horrible contraption that looks like a half dozen Dragoon Longbarrels attached to a crank.

They all just stand for a moment, most of them glaring immanent death at Rasmus...

...Until the young dryad snorts and begins to laugh.

((Man I am getting some mileage out of Eli's visual reference.

Also age her down appropriately, since she's the same age as Lil.))

[Visavis]

Rasmus looks up from the schematics and slowly turns his head to gaze at all the weapons trained on him around the room with a look of mild concern. Even as the dryad begins to laugh, Rasmus is cautiously setting the blueprint back on the table, facedown like he found it.

"I'm thinkin'.. you're not gonna sign that?"

[AlwaysAPrice]

When the forest elves draw, Red mutters a not entirely unexcited swear and lightning quick delivers a steel ball from her pouch to the pocket of her slingshot and draws her weapon taut, taking her aim at a spot just behind Rasmus' ear.

She also issues an audible "Sweet!" as her eyes flick to the female dragon's chain gun, before she sights back in on Rasmus.

[Idran1701]

Before she can reply to Tagger, Rasmus does whatever it was he did; she sighs as everyone draws weapons on him, stepping over to the edge of the circle of guns with arms crossed. "All right, what did you do, Rasmus? This might be the fastest I've ever seen a group turn on someone."

[Shinigori V2]

There's an awkward silence between the meeting, as the dryad just continues to laugh, eventually falling forward and banging her head on the table, though laughing the whole time. Eventually she sits back up, taking a deep (and likely) unnecessary breath. "Everyone, everyone! Calm down." She says in accented common. "It was a simple accident. Eli, could you please get a piece of paper for Mr. Trask?" She says, looking down to the side. A moment later, she slides her chair back...placing a certain shy, bandaged Nekana Revenant in her lap. Her two Arbitors shift as if preparing to fix the situation, before she waves them back with a slight scowl. "You're looking for a certain box? Could I see the pixogram?"

"So." Lil says, crossing her arms and looking to Triya. "Couldn't cut it in the bottle, huh?"

[Kelne]

"Oh, it's always good to get out and about," Sana said, "Stretch your legs, meet new people, that kind of thing." She'd been leaning against the counter, watching the unfolding mayhem with every sign of interest. She'd seemed completely unbothered by the weaponry on display. "What about you, Lil? Any aspirations to see the world, or are you already pretty well traveled?"

Triya reached past the djinn to pluck the void box off the counter. She was decidedly less sanguine about short-fused bodyguards, but they did still have questions about it, and might as well see what they could find out. With Sana distracted, she decided to ask another question about it, "I don't suppose anybody's seen these things floating about recently?" she asked, addressing her question to the room at large. It had occurred to her that the void box might not just be a one-off thing that only this one Null had happened to own.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Red lowers her slingshot. Eventually. She looks disappointed.

[Shinigori V2]

"Void box?" The lankey dragon says, nodding for his daughter to go back to the records. "That's the first anyone's seen in years. The ones that are still in one piece are well hidden, or in the hands of private collectors."

"Traveled enough for all I care about, but Gramps is gonna keep dragging us around because he doesn't want to get punched in the face or anything. What about her, though?" Lil jerks her head at Sana. "I figured you guys wouldn't have masters from the same place as you."

[Idran1701]

With a mental sigh of relief once everyone lowers their weapons, Kyrie takes out the pixogram, passing it over to the dryad with a smile to Stray. "Here, we found it some distance away. Can you tell us anything?"

And once the dryad begins her examination, she looks back to Tagger with a hand on Stray's shoulder. "Is that right, what Lil said? I don't remember hearing about a trip like this at all...how long ago was this, if I may ask? Not more than a few years, I would think?"

[Shinigori V2]

"Ah, hmm!" The dryad says, laying it flat on the table. "This is a copy of the image known as the Trinity." She says after a moment. "It's just a fragment of it, though. This image turns up a lot at Null hideouts; we assume the Plainsrunner man is one of the leaders."

Tagger nods. "That's correct, it was some time ago, about when Mari was their age. I doubt your mother's talked much about it; how often do Nekana speak on failed trade agreements, hmm?"

[Kelne]

"Oh, you know how it is," Sana said, "Each nation tries to keep control of their own little advantage. We'll shake things up a bit Come The Revolution," she tapped her nose conspiratorially.

Triya frowned, turning the box over in her hands, "I don't think this one's last owner was a collector," she said, "Actually... could someone make new ones if they wanted to? If they had the design, or a working one to look at? And are people sure about the talking to ghosts thing, or is that just an old story?" She was a bit dubious about it herself; if the void boxes let you talk to ghosts, well, that could be useful, but did you really need to commission thousands of the things?

[Idran1701]

"I suppose not often at all," Kyrie says with a light smile. After a moment, though, her brow furrows and her ears lower, as something doesn't quite add up. "Though...I'm a bit confused, sir; it was that long ago? Your granddaughters don't seem old enough to have met her, then."

And at the dryad's comments, Kyrie smirks a bit. "They're quite a bit more well-known here, it seems? Banners and all. Can you tell us anything about the Null Group here? Are they still around any? We have something of an interest in finding them ourselves."

[Shinigori V2]

"They could make some." Greenskin says, taking the Trinity fragment from the dryad and looking at it himself. "Wouldn't do them any good. They don't work. They never have."

"Can't prove a negative, dah." The draconic girl says, ducking back into the storage room. "Maybe they work an' the ghosts just ain't talking."

"Right." Greenskin says flatly. "What my oh so observant daughter pointed out. Still, it's unlikely they work as advertised, especially since breaking them is an essential step in creating them."

Meanwhile, the Twins rank up again, in order to more efficiently gang up on Kyrie. "We're older than you, y'know." Eli says. "Technically." Lil adds. "We're just super slow now." Eli follows. "But only in the aging sense we're actually super smart." Lil finishes.

The dryad pays them no heed, mouth pulling to the side in thought. "I don't know about here, but they still have a lot of presence in The Green. The advantage here is they have identified an agent, that purple scaled Draconic girl." she tsks, shaking her head. "It's a shame such a young woman got caught up with them."

[Idran1701]

She gives the two twins a quick look, wondering how to take their claims and giving their grandfather an inquisitive brow. Rather than respond to the two, though, she turns back to the dryad, squeezing Stray's shoulder lightly as she talks.

"Has anyone done anything about them yet? If they've identified an agent, they must've had some success, yes? And who is it here that's directing the investigations by the dragons? We might want to talk to them, I imagine...perhaps they'd be able to help us some."

[Shinigori V2]

The Dryad looks to Trask, who nods slightly. One of Trasks's men locks the main door to the establishment.

"The thing is," The Dryad begins carefully, "Null isn't a criminal organization here. They sided with the Dragons in the Draconic War. The billboards are more of a...Nodding along with policy." She says. "They're not actively looking for them. If anything, Kokoniel is a safehaven for their group."

[Oleai]

Oleai had fallen quiet, still. After the chase and all the confusion.

These were big people talking big things, and well outside her general simple philosophy on life. Criminal organizations and undead armies and strange technology. Oleai just wanted to go home. It was the only reason she came, afterall. This whole offshoot seemed unimportant, though she wasn't uninterested.

Rasmus had made his mistake with the paper, and so the gypsy-woman kept her hands to herself. She'd tried to plead for peace during the little standoff, but the Dryad had made sure of all that.

Despite her tall rabbit-woman's recently penchant for being a room decoration, she opted to speak up, "Miss Plant? What is your name? I've never even heard of something like you before."

She blurted out, with no regards for the rest of the conversation going on.

[Shinigori V2]

The dryad doesn't seem to mind much, smiling slightly up at Oleai from her sitting position. ...Plus even if she was standing Oleai would still have a good foot and a half on her anyway. "I'm a Dryad, one of the Forest Elves. My name is Autumn."

Forest Elf Specialization:

Spoiler:

Autumn, the Warrior Dryad. The one the others call when a threat to the Green is identified. Asked to step in when there can be no uncertainty about the fate of things, and one of the only Dryads to believe that death is simply a part of the cycle of life, rather than believing themselves to be a full avatar of Life itself.

Uh oh.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Red wasn't quite in the same boat as Oleai, but hers was of at least a similar shape. This all stank of political maneuvering -- literal back room dealing, for Legayne's sake! -- the kind of crap that probably led to the Draconic War in the first place. Rather than latch onto satisfying her own curiosities like the Plainsrunner had, Red decided to forget the lot of them and head after Greenskin's daughter to see how the records search was going. And maybe find out how much she wanted for the contraption she'd hauled out to threaten Rasmus with.

The dryad's answer to Oleai, however, brought Red's swagger towards the storeroom skidding to a halt three strides in. Red spun around on her heel and moved swiftly to join the group in the back room. She was dangerously close to showing a level of interest and enthusiasm that rivalled Rasmus' reaction to the presence of Trask Icehammer, but fortunately realized this. She quickly composed herself, forced a relaxed and disinterested stance, folded her arms in a way that wouldn't obscure her topaz token, and offered the dryad a "H-hey, 'sup?"

[Shinigori V2]

Autumn raises her brows with a sly smile at Red. "And hello to you, Airborne. Taking some personal time while Amber's between cycles, are we?" She leans her elbows onto the table, resting her chin on her hands. "Unless you've got the honor of the next planting, I suppose. She never was one for tradition."

Just then the younger dragon returns from the records room with a few pieces of paper. "Took me forever, but I finally got it!"

[Visavis]

It was not so much that the conversation was outside of Rasmus' ability comprehend as it was uninteresting to him. With it now perfectly clear that things were moving again, he turned his attention back to Trask.

"Hey, so autograph?" he asked in a somewhat less fan-boyish tone. His enthusiasm to get an autograph was as sincere as before. It had merely been tempered by having several weapons trained on him, and then turned away. It almost seemed impolite for everyone to get worked up and then not even fight.

[Idran1701]

Oleai's question brings a small wince from Kyrie at her own bad manners, and she shakes her head, chuckling. "Oh, I'm sorry, miss; I can't believe I hadn't asked myself. I hope you didn't take offense." With Red's sudden arrival, she decides to take a step back from that conversation, giving Stray a brief hair tussle before glancing to Oleai with a smirk, her voice low in the din that's filling the room.

"A good spot of luck, hmm? With what they already know about Null here, we might be able to get even further ahead of the other groups. Do you think any've already made their way here, then?"

[Oleai]

"Oh.. Nice to meet you, Autumn!" Oleai waved a bit energetically. Tall ears waggling at the motion. When she was happy, excited or just being pleasant, Oleai could only be described as very animated. Every word or inflection usually accompanied with some motion or another. A hand gesture, a hip waggle or headbob.

When Kyrie spoke to her, she looked left - then looked right - before pointing to herself with an index finger as if asking who the Nekana was speaking to quietly to. Her voice lowered and she bent at the waist to join in on the whispering. "Do they know about Null? I wasn't paying too much attention, this place is scary! But uhm.. I wouldn't think any other groups have come here except by maybe accident? Kinda like us. But I think we're lucky, yeah!"

The irony of her statement was entirely lost to her.

[Shinigori V2]

"Ha!" Trask bellows, signaling Eli over with the paper she collected. "You're determined, boy! I like that!"

He quickly scribbles out an autograph, with his T looking much more like a battleaxe than a letter, before handing it up to Rasmus. "You know, boy, I could use someone as persistent as you."

"My name is no trouble." Autumn says, turning to Kyrie. "Though I wish to speak with you once this is all settled."

The dragon girl scoots over towards Red, inching in next to her and speaking quietly, indicating a few pieces of paper quietly.

And again, Calamity yelps from the back, with the elder dragon sighing loudly afterward.

[Idran1701]

Kyrie restrains a sigh at Oleai's comment, simply smirking a slight bit. She wonders sometimes what it is that goes through Oleai's head; she'd love a peak inside. A nice enough girl, but so easily distracted.

With a small nod, she responds. "Mm...they do, yes. Much more than anyone else we've run into, at least; they've even identified one of their agents here. I hope you're right. Some luck would be a nice change of pace for our group, hmm?"

Shortly after, Autumn draws her attention and makes her request, and Kyrie gives her a small nod, smiling. "Oh, of course, I'd be happy to."

[Kelne]

"Of course," Triya observed, "If the posters are just to show willing, the authorities might not be all that happy with us stirring things up by actually tracking the girl down." It was, come to that, interesting that they'd even gone so far as to put up posters, if they were friendly towards the Nulls. This might be a bit of a sacrificial lamb situation.

[Visavis]

The autograph is held like some sort of ancient manuscript. Rasmus begins mentally debating whether to hold on to it to show off during his travels, or to send it back home for safekeeping. While pleased with the signature, what Trask says after signing really piques Rasmus' curiosity.

"Use someone persistent? For what?"

[AlwaysAPrice]

Red scoffs good-naturedly at the suggestion she might have been chosen to assist in Amber's planting, "Oh, no way, I've only been in her service a few years, you had it right the first time. Couldn't have risked a journey up Garpaath and Kokoniel way if I'd been assigned that honor." Red shifted her weight on her feet and forced herself to uncross her arms, trying to look at ease in the presence of the one Dryad known for kicking ass more than hugging things out. "So, uh...I guess something big's going on if you're--"

The younger Greenskin's approach interrupted her, and Red awkwardly excused herself from Autumn's business to hear what she'd found in their records, taking a step away with the dragon and looking at the papers she'd brought up front, listening intently. Red's face shifted through an initial flash of panic at what she was told into a brief look of relief, then settled into consternation. They exchanged a few more words, then Red nodded. "Thanks, yeah, I'll definitely be back. Hey, Nekana!" she belts as she parts with the dragoness, looking towards Kyrie. "Which pride or litter or whatever wears bloody slashes?" She mimes raking the air with curled fingers to suggest claws.

[Idran1701]

Kyrie's tempted to just ignore her with the way she's speaking to her, but the description piques her interest. She glances away from Oleai towards the elf, her ears turned away and her tail drooping. "Clan. And bloody slashes? That's Tiger's Eye...why do you ask? Where did you see an emblem like that?" Something about the description's obviously put her on edge, her pupils narrowing as she stares back towards Red.

[AlwaysAPrice]

Red almost looked thrown by getting a straight answer in spite of her lazy, uninformed disrespect. Maybe even a little impressed by it as well. She manages to explain her interest without any further sniping undertones. "As of thirty seconds ago, I'm looking for them. Three of 'em, one of them geared up, rolled a carriage out of Al Reis that was carrying the guy that bought the guns I'm after."

[Idran1701]

"You'd better gear up yourself if you're going after them, then," she replies with a frown. "And find more than a few mercenaries to back you up. Tiger's Eye is one of the three major Nekana clans, and those are their battle colors. If they were showing that emblem, then the clan's at war with someone. And it probably has to do with whoever it was they took. This would be the worst time to get on their bad side."