[Nasira broke off from everyone else. She's on hot pursuit (haha!) of the flaming NINJA. Or whatever he is. But like a good bodyguard, she's seeking out the person who caused her boss bodily harm. Which means..] [Session start] * Nasira let Shan know, yes, and now she's in persuit! Which means she's running and following the bloody trail so conveniently left behind. A grin's on her face, and her weapons are sheathed, but we all know how much of a difference *that* makes. [The trail leads off towards the backroads of the town. It leads out a path through the grass and the trees. About halfway out, the blood seems to be smeared in one spot. Seems he tried to wipe it off. It gets harder to follow the further you go.] * Nasira blinks with her one eye and regretfully slows down a little, taking more careful notice as to where the trail's leading. [The blood leads a little further but soon it stops. He must have tied off the wound when he got a decent ways away.] * Nasira frowns, now, and takes a moment to kick a nearby building. Then she gets a look around. [Sadly for Nasira, the nearest nearby building is back quite a ways. She's in the middle of a long strip of grass just at the edge of the Trade Guild's estate. ;P] (Was it consistently going in one direction?) [There are trees nearby though. It starts sparce at first but the growth gets gradually thicker. Looking around, there's also a cliffside that the blood has been parallelling. It's been a fairly straight line thus far.] * Nasira looks around, then keeps going the way it was before. She checks for footprints or the like, but there's no way it'll be that easy. [Nasira enters the sparse end of the woods. She hears the twittering of birds up in the trees. They do make a lovely sound, don't they?] * Nasira glances up. Dangerous killer birds, and she nevertheless enters the woods. Oh no! [There's the fluttering of wings as she enters the forest. Her ears seem to attune to it now. Off in the distance is a gun shot followed by loud...well, you assume it's cursing. It's in Maltan but cursing kind of has a universal tone to it.] * Nasira turns in the direction of the shot and off she runs. Through the forest, even. Hopefully she won't run into a tree or something. [Nasira doesn't run into a tree. Who does she think she is? Makoto?] * Nasira isn't Makoto, thank God. [As she gets in the distance, she sees a man in a rather unkempt state. He's got stubble. Well, bristles might be more appropriate. Still he doesn't seem any older than Nasira. His eyes are a bit bloodshot as he waves a musket pointed in the air (con).] [He's wearing a black jacket that's gold buttons are unbuttoned at the time and has mussy brown hair. He staring up at the sky, grumbling to himself in Maltan. <"Why won't the blasted things stay still?">] * Nasira slows down, coming into view, and steps out of the woods. "Hey!" * Man turns towards Nasira and immediately turns his musket on her, eying her suspiciously. The barrel wavers just slightly when he gets a good look at her but doesn't drop completely. "What do ya want?" * Nasira walks over to him, still grinning. She's slightly singed from the fight, but it's nothing too bad... then again, tall Caladeem woman, smiling in the face of a gun, one eye, sword. "You should watch where you aim that thing. You could put an eye out." * Man gets a good, long look at her and finally raises the musket. "Is that what happened then?" * Nasira laughs. No. So, is this how greetings go in this country? You point your weapon at someone? * Man shakes his head and tries to make a vain attempt to fix his hair. It's a wonder his fingers don't get caught. "Is when the person sneaks up on you. I'd say that's pretty universal." He eyes her carefully. "Aren't you a bit far out of your element, Caladeem girl?" Sneak up on you? I'm in plain sight! * Nasira holds her hands out. Not a weapon in them. Well, there are weapons on her, but. * Man smirks. "Yeah. So are most pirates. As the rest of 'em sneak up behind ya." * Nasira keeps grinning and takes another step over. Let's see if he snaps. "Then why aren't you looking behind you?" Because if there *are* pirates behind me, I'm doomed anyhow, so I might as well try to take out at least ONE of 'em before I go down. That's rich. That I'm a pirate, or that I'm a girl. Unless you're a boy, because you don't look any older than I am. Now put the gun down unless you're really itching for a fight. * Man shrugs and settles the gun at his side. "You do have an eyepatch, you know..." * Nasira smirks. "Yes, and everyone loses their eyes on the seas." They would if I were on board. * Man grins at his own joke. * Nasira folds her arms. "Sorry, wasn't that lucky. You wouldn't have seen a Chu-Lin guy come running by, would you? On the ground or the trees." Might've had flaming hair. That would make him hard to miss. * Man snorts. "Lady...if I had a drach for every person who asked me what I saw..." He walks over towards a tree slowly and pulls out a bottle from behind it. Must have been hiding pretty good. "Well, I'd probably have a few drach. I wouldn't be rich, that's for sure." He uncorks the bottle and takes a swig before holding it out to Nasira. * Nasira takes it and has a sniff before taking a drink and handing it back. "That's a no?" [The scent of the liquor is pretty potent as she takes a whiff of it. Fortunately, she manages to down it without much in the way of ill effects. But gah, it's pretty strong. She can't really identify the type...] * Man shakes his head. "I'm afraid I've been too busy with them, miss..." He waves his gun at the birds in the distance. "Maybe they saw something though." * Nasira frowns, then loses the frown with a shrug. "Yeah, okay. I'll just ask them." * Man looks at Nasira oddly. "Now this I gotta see..." * Nasira catches him looking at her seriously and laughs. * Nasira takes a while to calm down, and she eventually says, "I can't actually talk to birds. I'm no mage." Well drat. Neither am I. Shoot, maybe if I understood 'em better, I wouldn't be shooting at them. But thanks for your help. And the booze... uh, whatever it is. * Man takes aim up again. "Special import." He shoots. He scores! There's a squawk as the birds disperse while one falls through the trees, rustling the leaves. * Nasira hears the bird fall. Katie Andrews would so get PETA on his case. "Gonna get that?" Eventually. * Man leans on his gun and savors the moment. With a drink. * Nasira shrugs again. "Suit yourself." She holds out her hand, Maltan style, with a grin. "Nasira Zehil. Daughter of Kamil and Hala Zehil, and student to Mirza Saleh. You are?" * Man snorts. "An old drunk shooting birds. What of it?" * Nasira eyes him. "I gave you my name. You give me yours." She's still got the grin, but it's vanished from her voice. But...I guess if you're gonna be so damned polite about it...Louis Farnhimmel. * Louis eyes Nasira's hand and her suspiciously. "What gives with the long introduction anyhow? Is this Mirza Saleh guy important?" * Nasira laughs. "No. It's how we introduce ourselves in Caladeem. Name, family, teacher." I guess I could drop the other two, but it'd help remind me how far I am from home. * Louis keeps looking at her. "Why is that?" * Nasira retracts the hand. "Because I'm not home, of course." I meant why do you guys do it like that? Ah. * Nasira shrugs, smiling. She folds her hands behind her back. "Because it's the way it's always been done." It's a way to keep trust. If you break your word, everyone knows who your family and teacher are. They can hold you and them to it. And if they know your teacher and your family, they know something about you. Reputation spreads. * Nasira grins. "Plus, it's great at parties. Drunken people trying to introduce themselves." Huh...guess that's an interesting way of doing it... What if you don't have a teacher though? * Nasira laughs. "Then you leave that part out. And if you have no family, you ignore that, too. You must be an orphan." * Louis shrugs. "If I am, I don't care. If I'm not, it ain't like I'm talking to my dad any time soon anyhow." He fires another shot. This one's a lot poorer aimed * Nasira snickers. "Yeah." She looks into the distance, then back to Louis. "Good luck with that." And watch it with that gun. If I didn't have such a bad day, I would've fought you over it. So what happened? * Nasira laughs. "What, today? Was gonna kill someone who was begging for it, got cut off by my boss getting stuck in a burning building, and now I'm looking for the guy who did it." I take it the person you were gonna kill and the guy who burned the building aren't the same person? If they were, this problem would've been solved by now. So why do you wanna kill 'em? * Louis leans back against a tree. It looks like he'd want to take a smoke but...rare imports. Poor Louis. ;_; * Nasira 's eye flashes, and she loses the smile. "That's a story I don't want to go into." Nah? Surely they're must be a reason. Otherwise it's just a silly vendetta or something. * Nasira smirks. "Maybe it is." Why don't you want to talk to your dad? * Louis takes another shot. "I mean...even if it's just "They got drunk and I didn't like what they said about my ma" is still a reason. Who said I didn't?" You said you're not talking to him any time soon. Why's that? He dead? Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. How should I know? * Nasira shrugs. "You'd have a better idea than me." * Louis snorts "Probably not at this point." * Nasira lets that slide, looking into the distance again. "Anyway, I got a job to do, and I gotta try to finish it before my boss falls under the table, 'cause I bet she's working on that right now. I'll probably never see you again, but who knows." Back to the grin, at him. "Not me." You often introduce yourself to people you'll never see again? Where are you heading? * Nasira shrugs. "To find the guy. Probably nowhere." Left a trail of blood, but he must've patched himself up before hitting the woods. And you have any idea where he went? Hell, you're making me feel pretty guilty. I haven't even really enjoyed my drink because of you... * Louis takes a swig despite that statement and wipes his mouth. "Let's go..." * Nasira eyes him. With her one eye. "The hell are you feeling guilty for? Unless you're the fire guy, but I've gotta wonder how you grew the stubble so fast." I'm sitting here shooting at annoying birds. You're on some important mission. I mean come on, really... * Nasira laughs. Okay, sure. Know a lot about tracking people down? * Louis hefts up his musket, tossing it up so it slides vertically in his grasps before he can catch the barrel. "Come on. Where'd you last spot him?" * Louis actually grins at that statement. "Wouldn't be in the woods if I didn't know my way around it, now would I?" Course I could be horribly lost and we're both going to wander around nowhere until we run out of food and die of starvation...ya never know. * Nasira snickers. "All right. Come on." She heads back to where the blood trail let out. * Louis follows Nasira. Good little drunk. (I assume we get there without horrible cataclysm?) [The earth opens up and swallows Nasira whole!] [Just kidding. You get there without any problems.] ( :9) * Nasira points it out. "Here's where it let out." She points at the rest of the trail. "He was going pretty much in a straight line, and he's got a thing for hopping around on branches, so I figured he went to the woods." * Louis looks down at the blood, then crouches down, taking up a few blades of grass and sniffing them before tossing them in the air. * Nasira steps out of the way and watches him do his thing. * Louis looks up and starts walking in the direction of the path again, towards the woods. * Nasira follows. She's got a mildly curious look on her face. * Louis walks over to the nearest tree and looks up. "Hmm.." He went up? Not sure...I think he was trying to be extra careful at covering his tracks. Plus I don't think anyone's that acrobatic. * Nasira snickers. "This guy's pretty damn acrobatic. But yeah, you're probably right." * Louis looks off ahead and walks towards there. "Grass is flattened there...let me see your foot." * Nasira places a hand against the tree and stands on one foot. * Louis takes a look at the foot and points off in a direction. "That way...he seems to have turned now." * Nasira nods and waves for him to lead, since he knows where he's going. [Louis starts leading. After a while of it seeming like a wild goose chase, he comes to the edge of the forest and hmms. Mainly it's because he's staring over the edge of a cliff. A beach lies far below.] * Nasira looks down, then lets loose with a series of rather vivid curses in Caladeem. [There seem to be rock overhangs from time to time but mostly, yeah it's pretty steep. There seems to be a cave over the edge too. No ships in sight.] * Nasira spots the cave and points that out. "Think he went there?" Can't be sure...he either camped out or got picked up somewhere....heck, he could have had a rowboat stashed away and gone by himself. You never know. * Nasira shakes her head. "Could." And then she smirks. "But what's life without a little risk? I'm gonna go take a look. Thanks a lot for your help." * Louis nods. "Don't get yourself killed, daughter of Kamil and Hala Zehil, student of Mirza Saleh." * Nasira laughs. "Can't believe you remembered that." She claps him on the shoulder. "And same to you, Louis Farnhimmel." * Louis shrugs. "Hey, some things stick. Even if you've had a bit to drink. But thanks to you and your meddling, I'm feeling far more sober than I wanted to so if you'll excuse me.." He heads off. [There's footholds and such but yeah it's not an easy climb at all. There's more footholds a little away from the caves, but those are out over the water...which might be bad for Nasira. Of course hitting the sand won't be pleasant either.] * Nasira snickers and waves him off, then goes back to judging the distance. [There's no obvious easy way down. The beach stretches for a little ways and there might be a way down there but you can't see it from where you're at...] * Nasira eyes that water, then gets a better look at the footholds above the sand and closer to the caves. "Huh." And then a grin. "Can't catch a walking torch without a little danger." * Nasira tries to climb down. Uh oh. [Nasira tries to climb down...she gets a little ways down and gets past the first foothold...so far so good...as she climbs down to the next one, the rock gives way under her, skittering down into the ocean. She loses her footing and slides down rather quickly.] * Nasira grunts at that, and she digs her hands and feet into the cliff as best she can while falling, desperately trying to grab a hold or at least slow her descent. [Nasira manages to dig her hands into the side of the cliff. They scrape. Oh boy do they scrape. Her nail on her right hand actually comes mostly off and she gets lots of cuts and bruises in her hands. The good news is that if she can feel the pain, that means she's not drowning. She's hanging by one of the lower footholds instead. Well, that's one way to take a shortcut.] [Her hands are an absolute mess at this point. Her shirt is rather torn from the scraping as well. The fabric on her knees may be wearing thin too.] [If Nasira cares to look up, she's left a nice trickle of red along the otherwise tannish white clifface.] * Nasira grits her teeth, but amazingly, she doesn't shout out, even at the lost nail (ow!), the blood, and the burns on top of other burns. She takes a breath when the descent stops and squeezes her eyes shut, biting off a curse in Caladeem. * Nasira opens her eyes again, makes sure she's not falling anymore, and keeps climbing down. More carefully now. [Nasira manages to make it the rest of the way down and onto the beach. YAY BEACH! Dry land is a good thing.] * Nasira lets out a breath and checks over her hands with a small grimace. She heads over to the caves. [Her hands don't look too good. Her knees hurt a little too. Ouch.] * Nasira can live. She's a big girl. [The caves seem to only have a little bit of light going into them from the beach side. It trickles into the light sea green colored cavern. It twists later on but gets darker further in. Most of the cave is damp but there's a dry patch near the front. Some embers from what looks to be a fire rest in the dryest spot.] * Nasira looks around, then heads over to the embers. About how long ago? [The embers aren't that recent, but exactly how long ago, she can't pinpoint.] [They look like they're at least a day or two though.] * Nasira rises from the embers and heads further into the cave. [The green glow remains in the cave, but the light is still rather dim as she goes in. The cave starts getting damp the further in she goes.] * Nasira keeps going! Though if she hits water, she might have to stop. [The cavern seems to echo with her light sloshing through the caverns. No voice from any of the directions. The water, fortunately, is only ankle high at worst.] * Nasira pulls her knife from its sheath, ready to light it up should she need to. [As her sloshes echo, Nasira hears another sound threatening to echo over her own movements. She'd have to stop to listen to it better but there's definitely something out there.] * Nasira does stop, trying to isolate where it's coming from. [It's coming from ahead, slightly to the right. It's the main way that the passage bends. It sounds like...chittering? Yes, definitely chittering.] * Nasira blinks, then keeps going in. Rats? Water rats? [It sounds...bigger than a rat. And more insect like.] * Nasira creeps along. More slowly, now. * Nasira has her knife out, and she lets out a hiss of breath as she forces it to acquire a molten glow. [Nasira turns around the corner with the faint light in the cavern. There's a hiss and a scurry further in the cave.] * Nasira frowns a little. Well, whatever it is, torch guy probably isn't back there. * Nasira starts making her way out! [Nasira heads out. It doesn't...seem like anything's following her. Eerie cavern though.] [We end here now!]