[IC][Exalted 2.5] The Emerald Labyrinth

[wonderandawe]

Zarah whispers to Orca, "Please don't start anything here. The monk is nothing to us." She smiles at the fruit vendor and compliments their selection of fruit.

"We should hurry." Zarah says in a more normal tone of voice. "I do not want to have our contact to wait long. Anyways, I am eager to see this warehouse." To see if it even exists. Even after a few months in the north, Zarah was still wary of their more informal ways.

[Wise Old Guru]

Nergui startled at the harsh voice interrupting the children's chatter. He turned to look at the matronly woman, frowning.

Slowly, he raised a finger to his lips.

"Ssh," he declared.

[wonderandawe]

Lin Zarah stepped off of the airship into the cold. She pulled her fine fur cloak tightly around her neck. One day I will get used to this cold, she told herself. She smiled at the monk and her Anathema puppets. How I loved that show as a child. As she walked past the monk, she put a coin in the offering bowl. "Dragons bless you, sister," Zarah said in Skytongue. May they bless you with blindness, so I will not need to have you killed. It was not the monks fault she had been taught lies all her life.

Zarah quickly caught up with the Unrestrained Lover. "Yes, our contact was to meet us there. I'm glad the airships at least keep to some sort of schedule" She smiled at Nergui, the Airship Captain, before turning and heading into town.

[Exthalion]

"She does them a disservice."

The woman who spoke up was well into middle age, her graying hair drawn back in a severe braid. She had a matronly sort of cast, but an expression that said she would take poorly to being called "mother" or "madame".

"Happy endings are won with sorrow and sacrifice, if they are won at all, and life does not provide neatly packaged endings. This is good for raising up a crop of dreamers and fools who will end up miserable or dead."

She turned to her companion.

"Or am I just a bitter old spinster who can't let other people be happy?"

[dreamking89]

Orca steps off the airship, pulling his coat closer to himself, making a 'brrr' noise as he did so, "Who willingly lives up here in this frozen hell, I'll never know." It had been a cold trip on the airship, and nothing made Orca miss home more than the cold. Back in the West, his voyages on his ship (the Storm's Saber) were long, treacherous and more often than not deadly, but at least they weren't cold.

He tosses a jade piece to a vendor as he picks up an apple from a cart and looked around Last Chance. This had to be the place Plentimon was talking about. Months of traveling from frozen hellhole to frozen hellhole looking for signs hinting towards the gambling god's riddle had finally paid off. And hopefully the people he had met on board the ship would be able to help as well.

"Hey, I'm pretty far north," He says to no one in particular as he bites the apple, "Maybe I can work out here without worrying about...." He pauses, seeing the puppet show being put on by the Immaculate Monk, "Oh....son of a bitch...."

[Wise Old Guru]

"-and get us some more walrus oil!" The raspy voice of Grandpa Ragnar, which the airship's passengers had by necessity become accustomed to over the last couple of weeks, rang out in the cold air. "We need to keep the engine from freezing up while we're in port! And we're low on spare sailcloth after that port side repair, so some of that, and see if you can't get find a good blacksmith who can replace the patch on the aft boiler, it's not gonna hold more than another month or two at best."

"Yes, Ragnar." Nergui nodded, waving over his shoulder at the old engineer.

As he headed out into the crowd, he became quickly distracted by the puppet show. He watched from the side as the children laughed at the foolish Anathema and the slapstick comeuppance for their evils, and he smiled and chuckled along with them. As the show wound to its end, he quietly asked the puppeteer, "Do you know the one where Snowshoe Hare tricks Father Winter into giving away his fire?"

[Magnusar]

Ever since he stepped off the airship Unrestrained Lover found the city to be full of opportunity for his knowledge of technology to be applied. Lokking to his new business partner (He still has trouble with the concept of currency) Lin Zarah the small woman had proven to be a good ally in this new world. Covered from head to toe in his furcoat with most of his face hidden behind a large scarf he found onboard so that he would not stadn out too much.

"I believed you said you have secured a residence of a sort in this city should we go see it ?"

[Dietaku]

As you walk off the hustle and bustle of the airship dock, away from the friendly environs, into the new city. You enter into a cobblestone square, with a hustle and bustle of people, centered around a large fountain in the center of the space. On one end is a crowd of people gathered around a large dead carcass on a cart. Cheers and happy singing are coming from the crowd, while on the other side, there is a small market of vendors selling their wares. You can see a variety of merchants, from Guildsmen to the infamous Icecrowners peddling the pale Rimesilk they're so famous for, and many, many others.

Near the fountain is a full-figured woman in the robes of an Immaculate monk, her Rosary of the Five Dragons, stashed in her sash like a sword, and more unusual of all, an unruly mane of curls the color of the sky flows about her head. She's currently engaged in a Punch and Judy rendition of the Immaculate Dragons slaying the Anathema and sealing their souls in darkness for a gaggle of children and a band of hecklers.

What will you do?