SR Chapter 1 Milk Runs

[The Hospitaler]

"Atasaya? Oh, he's an old friend. Could never quite get the whole spirits thing. Magic... go fig. He's not got much, I guess he has to give alot of what he's owned to his order or clan or... something..." She says in regards to her Troll passenger. "As for the guy back there..." She says with a sigh. "Love of my life. He's a quiet one. A rare... admirable trait. Means he's a listener." The smile on her face is one of a lover. Plain and simple.

[SalmonMax]

Juno sat and stared flatly at the elf as he expounded, nay, exalted YumYum's artistic powers. She listened to it all, and at the end she had just one thing to say.

"So...what you're saying is...you want to fuck her."

[Jeremy]

Jeremy flushed a little- not all of it faked for the guard and gave Tabitha a peck on the cheek for good measure. Not to say he didn't possess a similar expression too.

[Atomicweasel]

"Tch," Baye muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "You say it like that's bad or something," The elf tugged at the collar of his tee shirt, "but it's only natural for me to recognize like 'hey, here's a young artist on the cusp'," he put a strong emphasis on 'cusp', "'of, you know, womanhood, who is blossoming, like, sexually,' and for me to desire her, that's just me responding to that um," Baye hesitated, "power that she has, you know, that magnetism." Baye dropped his head back on the seat.

"I'm not made of stone here," he concluded with a faint blush. "I mean, who doesn't want to fuck her?"

[SalmonMax]

Juno shrugged and nodded to the rearview mirror as the guard slammed the trunk shut and made an 'ok' gesture. She started the engine up and pulled forward through the checkpoint.

"Alright," she relented. "I just figured that, marketingwise, she was aimed more at teenagers. You know, insecure boys pretend she's singing about them, insecure girls want to be just like her. I mean, once you hit twenty or so, you have to know that everything about her is made-up, right? The tearjerker backstory, the 'struggles with success,' the charity causes...it's all just as cynically crafted as the see-through gauze she wears on stage, and for the same reason; to create an image of sexually desirable innocence for guys...and girls, I guess...to wet their seats to."

Noticing that Tabitha's car was still being inspected, Juno pulled over to wait.

"And there's no Santa Claus either."

[Atomicweasel]

"But that's not..." Baye paused to look over his shoulder as Juno pulled over, then turned to her. "that's--I don't agree with that. Look. Image is everything, right? Being an artist like YumYum isn't just about having a nice voice, I mean, you wanna talk about being realistic, let's talk about that. It doesn't matter how sweet you sing or dance or whatever the fuck, if you look like a fucking manatee, like, you know a fucking, cow. A land cow. Artists have to invent themselves, they have to create an image of themselves that appeals to people. Being an artist is about production values. Look at YumYum's production values, omae. Her stage presence is always amazing. Her backup dancers are perfect, she's always, you know, fucking perfect smile and all sparkly-eyed and just, fantastic. Who cares what she has to do to get there? The point is, she gets there. I mean, so what if her mom really wasn't a chip-head gogo dancer? So what if she's just doing it for the money? Omae, what the fuck are we doing driving..." Baye dropped his voice to a whisper, "driving a big fucking bomb around for? Artistic integrity? No. We're doing it for the cred...and we're getting paid chump change. Look what YumYum gets for a signing, chica. You want real? That's fucking real."

Baye looked pleased with himself.

[SalmonMax]

Juno laughed and shook her head. "That's not even...no. That makes no sense. People are what they do. If she's a singer, then she needs to sing. If you're a decker, you need to hack. If I'm a merc, then I'd better shoot straight. Image isn't everything. It's just PR. The only important thing is your job, and how well you do it. Everything else is just smoke."

"Besides I wasn't talking about her singing or art or whatever. I was talking about you being pedo for her. And my point was that you're not really pedo for HER, because you have no idea who she is. All you know is this PR advertising hoax-her...and you're pedo for that. For all you know, once you strip off the pseudoskin and turn off the anti-wrinkle implants, she could be a forty-year old chain smoker."

[Atomicweasel]

“Soka, omae, Yums is a forty year old chain smoker.” Baye nodded, drumming his fingers on his knees. “That makes good sense, there, cuz you know, so many forty year old chain smokers sound, like, a fucking angel, and fucking move and look like Yums. Soka. And probably the moon landing was faked too.”

Baye twisted in his seat to better address Juno. “You can put lipstick on a pig, but that don’t make it a superstar. Yums is a fucking, like bona fide, superstar. And of course image is fucking everything. Fucking wake up chica, people aren’t what they do, they’re what they project. You took one look at me and you were all, ‘ohmyfuckinggod his hair is so hot,’” Baye paused, holding up his index finger to keep Juno’s protest at bay. “But then, right after that, you were like, ‘golly gee, he must be a decker.’ And the reason you thought that was cuz I look the fucking part, omae.”

The elf squinted at Juno, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. “Remember our tusker buddies back there? For all we know they like playing checkers with their grannies and having tea parties, but they look like they could rip my fucking head off, and that’s all I care about, Shooter. Image is definitely everything.”

[SalmonMax]

"Image only matters when you don't know anything," Juno rebuts. "Anyone can dress like a decker and carry a cyberdeck. The difference between that and a real decker, is how they perform. Or are you going to tell me that the only thing someone needs to hack the Matrix is a datajack and a deck and a grunge sense of fashion?"

[The Hospitaler]

Tabitha roughs up Jeremy's hair. "Heh, let the whole world know, eh?" She says, smiling, returning a quick peck of her own.

"Here's all our IDs. My friend in the back is real tired, he's been kept up for quite a bit and we need to get him to where he needs to go next. Chasing spirits and such... I really don't understand what all that is about. All I know is whatever has been bothering him was keeping him awake until he finally decided to just go."

She giggles. "Dumb thing's gonna owe me fuel money."

She plays the role to a T, being the ignorant, mundane untalented yet understanding friend.

[Wyrd]

The guards finish checking over Tabitha's vehicle, the one asking the question saying, "Stay on the main roads. The Sioux nation is not responsible for what happens to anyone who fails to obey this rule. They stopped issuing hunting licenses a decade ago because the paracritters need to eat and enjoy a good hunter every now and then--it's open season for anything you can survive catching. Have a nice day, and I hope your friend doesn't get you killed, or worse."

From the next lane over, Tabitha's group can hear Kisada arguing with a guard over whether his bike was street legal, and whether it mattered since he was leaving the city. He catches up not too long after Tabitha pulls out, though, with Juno pulling back into the lead.

Miles roll by before Juno's GPS tells her to make a turn off of the paved road and onto a gravel road. A couple of forks later, the gravel gives way to a heavily rutted dirt road. She starts to hear the distant sound of banjos until she turns to glare at Baye, who responds, "What? I'm the one with the purty mouth, here," before switching back to teeny-bopper music.

Here, Tabitha's car does far better than Juno's, fitting into the wild and bumpy roads as well as Juno's sedan had fitted into the city. Kisada's street racing tires couldn't get a grip on the loose soil, causing a lot of cursing to come from the back of the group.

Eventually, the group came to a small clearing at the GPS coordinates they were given. They pulled into the clearing, parked, and waited for someone to show up.

Baye, surprisingly enough, noticed it first. Coming towards them through the woods was what looked like living smoke, taller than he was, with glints of light flickering in its midst. As the being stepped into the clearing and sunlight struck it, everyone could see that the shadowy creature was a wolf--or, rather, that it's ancestors had been a wolf. This wolf shaped animal was nearly a meter and a half tall. Its fur rippled slowly, creating a dappled pattern of light and dark that had seemed to be smoke in the darkness of the woods, with the occasional glint of more brightly colored under fur creating the impression of fire in the smoke. The wolf's eyes glowed a faint yellow, and its breath was a faintly luminous steam.

Atasaya immediately checked the astral signature of the beast, finding it to be a magically active paracritter, and not the manifested spirit he had been expecting. He could also see a another, smaller, magical signature approaching from the woods.

[Krugar Rockbiter]

Once the group had cleared the checkpoint, the 'device' went quickly back to its holster, and Atasaya breathed a sigh of relief that he was still around to...well, breathe a sigh of relief.

More than once, as the road began to degenerate and potholes became unavoidable, Ata's head bounced off the roof of the vehicle and he idly wondered as he rubbed his head how bad it would have been if he hadn't just ground off the most recent set of nub horns.

At the clearing, where they appeared to be having the meeting, grass reigned, dotted by the occasional wildflower. They were far enough north to be out of the dry scrubland, pines and spruce mixed with the cottonwood and elm trees that encircled the meadow. The heat of the day was in full-throttle and the snow-like seeds of the cottonwoods were floating through the air, as though the spirits of the woods were having a pillow fight.

As the smoke-wolf entered, Atasaya went over it intently.

Now that's a hotdog.

He smiled inwardly at the terribly cheesy thought and exited out of the vehicle quickly. "Be alert." he said quietly back into the rover.

The troll stretched out, happy to stand his full height. He reached a hand behind him and flopped his hair a couple times, sending beads clacking as it resettled. Holding his staff in front of him, he gave a respectful nod to the paracritter and turned his gaze towards the second approaching figure.

[The Hospitaler]

Tabitha leans out her window, seeing the glowing, and interesting para-critter approach. "So noted, Atasaya." She says, opening her door, stepping out, then closing it. With her eyes on the wolf, she stays next to her vehicle. A captain never abandons her ship.

She unzips her bomber jacket again, letting herself have easy access to her pistol in her holster.

"So... I wager this creature has a master, doesn't it?" Tabitha asks as she crosses her arms.

[Jeremy]

Jeremy slipped a hand into his jacket, palm brushing the handle of one of his concealed throwing knives as he stepped out of the Rover on the other side versus where Atsaysa was. He needed more open space to best use his weapons, and if it came to a fight, Tabitha could pull out fast.

[SalmonMax]

Juno stared for a moment out the windshield of her nice, safe car.

Goddamn she hated paracritters. You had no idea where you stood with them. Could it fly? Could bullets hurt it? Was it going to breathe fire, or shoot lasers out of its eyes, or just jump on you and maul you? No way to tell until it did. They were intel nightmares.

She got out of the car slowly, so as not to provoke it and didn't draw her weapon. She knew the rules in NAN were different, but she wasn't sure by how much. In UCAS, this thing would be dodging mage hitsquads until it died, they did, or it was WAY out of town. Here? For all she knew it was the goddamn President. So she played 'good soldier' and kept her mouth shut and her eyes and ears open.

[LydaLynn]

From behind the large wolf a smaller wolf emerges. This one slight, younger and possibly female looks to the larger wolf for a moment, a few short low growls, the ruffle of fur and flick of an ear as they communicate something between them. Something decided, the dire-wolf walks cautiously halfway across the clearing.

Sniffing at the vehicles from what she feels to be a safe distance, she watches the people emerge from the metal monsters. When a door opens, she startles back a few steps before coming back to where she had been waiting. At the emergence of the first of the runners, the female wolf . . . stands.

An odd melting of features as thick hide replaces fur and clawed paw change into humanoid hands seems almost surreal under the midday sun. Standing, naked in the middle of the clearing is a young troll. While her hair is tangled with branches and leaves and there is basic dirt caked on her skin, she seems to be at least marginally acquainted with cleansing power of a river swim.

Unconcerned with her unclothed state, the young troll stands, back slightly hunched, every inch the predator. One word, growled but inquisitive from a voice harsh with disuse, "Milk?" She waits for the strange humanoid shadow runners to give her what she has been promised.

As she waits and energetic puppy tumbles into the light behind the large male dire-wolf. A coughing bark from the male sends it scurrying back to the safety of the woods. The young troll girl doesn't take her eyes from the vehicles or their occupants.

[Krugar Rockbiter]

Atasaya arched a brow at the transformation, but it was far from the strangest thing he had seen. When the cub tumbled into the clearing, suddenly the Old Lady's metaphor seemed to make more sense.

Maybe not quite as confusing as I thought.

He leaned back into the Rover and undid the straps and removed the package, gingerly and carefully reemerging and turning around to face the young troll. Cradling it in one hand with his cactus in the other, he gestured towards it, and then her, "Milk?"

[SalmonMax]

"You know?" Juno remarked quietly to Baye, "This may be the most fucked-up op I've run. And I've run some fucked-up ops."

[The Hospitaler]

Tabitha shakes her head. She seems jaded, but she's more open-minded when it comes to things like this than it seems. After all she's just as unusual as anyone else who has natural reflexes matching any cybernetically enhanced man out there.

"Always something new under the sun." She says. leaning against her range rover. "Let's get her her milk and wrap this up in a pretty bow." She says.

[LydaLynn]

As the container comes out, the young female troll takes a step forward to grab it. Stepping back before she opens it up, she sniffs the white liquid. Even from this distance, the smell of sulfur is strong. With a satisfied nod, she turns and takes it back to the edge of the woods.

A yipped bark calls the pups from the woods, the male dire-wolf taking over watching the runners. The troll sets the container down and the large puppies create a wiggling mass around the container, each eager to eat.

[Jeremy]

"Milk." Jeremy murmurred under his breath. "Literal meanings now, Ms. Esterhouse? That's something for the memory books." Well, there wasn't much to be surprised about, being a master throwing adept and his lover an adept of the wheel.

[Wyrd]

Originally Posted By: Ace of Hearts

"So... I wager this creature has a master, doesn't it?" Tabitha asks as she crosses her arms.

The wolf snarls just a moment at this, but otherwise doesn't react until his companion comes forth.

Once the troll has started feeding the puppies, he tilts his head marginally to the side and then backs away a few steps, never taking his attention off of the runners.

[SalmonMax]

Juno pursed her lips and looked from Tabitha to Baye to Kisada and each of the other runners, as if hoping any of them might have any idea of what to do next.

"So...that's it, right? We can go? Does Esterhouse need a receipt or something?"

[Kisada]

Kisada shakes his head and stays over on his motorcycle, "I think that she'll take our word for it with a description of what happened. Now, can we get back to civilization? or do you want to play around in the dirt some more, omae?"

[Atomicweasel]

Baye watched the exchange from the safety of Juno's sedan, peering out through the window. He watched with the intensity of a child at a parade, his eyes fixed on the spectactle of the family of wolves. Behind the irises of his eyes, a micro-camera was busily recording every second.

"Got lobo and co. on candid camera," Baye announced as Juno slid back into the driver's seat, "that shit's going on MyTrid. I'm gonna get a ton of hits. Not to mention trog porn. Is that some sick shit or what?" Baye grinned lop-sidedly at Juno. "I always used to wonder, like, what do girl trolls look like naked, but now, like, I mean, that is some..." Baye giggled helplessly, "that is some nasty shit."

[SalmonMax]

Juno couldn't help but snicker as she settled in and turned the ignition.

"Some of it was dirt," she explained. "And...some was moss. I think. I hope. And that milk smelled like burning tires. Definitely ready to go back to the city now."

She started backing up and turning carefully in the loose dirt.

"Five hundred credits...that oughtta just about pay for the carwash," Juno grumped as reddish dust wafted up and around her sedan.

[LydaLynn]

As the runners started to leave, the troll looked over at them. She reached into some low hanging branches and pulled out something about the size of an egg. Walking over to Atasaya, as the one who gave her the milk, she holds her hand out to him.

Standing there, she suddenly looks young, very young. Anyone who knows trolls can see she's likely little more than twelve. But the moment passes and she again looks more the feral animal than troll child.

As soon as she gives Atasaya the rock she was holding, she scurries back to the puppies. As she moves she shifts. Her arms become legs, her skin grows thick black fur, and she is one with the pack.

Click to reveal..

An appropriate knowledge check will reveal the stone to be a raw saphire.

[Atomicweasel]

"I know, right?" Baye scratched under his nose and then propped his elbow up against the window. He was careful not to lean too far, lest his precious hair get mussed up by the door frame. "Not to mention the cost of therapy, you know, for like, the psychological trauma. Of naked troll girl. That shit's expensive, omae. You pay some dude five hundred creds an hour so he can tell you that you hate your mother and you resent your dad, or you know, you're sad all the time because you were born a girl," Baye waved his hand at Juno "and you don't have a penis."

The elf glanced up at the rearview mirror as Juno turned the car around. "I think lobotrog just tried to pay us with a rock..."

[Jeremy]

Jeremy looked out at the odd rock given... surely there had to be something valuable about that hunk. When Atsaya threw it away dismissively, he went and picked it up anyway, putting it under his seat in the Rover.

Click to reveal..

First Int+Perception was 1 sux... Edge reroll.

Jeremy *rolls* 7d6: 4+1+5+5+2+6+4: 27

Jeremy *rolls* 1d6: 3: 3

3 sux.

[Wyrd]

Click to reveal..

This run seems to be finished, so I'm just going to move on to the wrap-up

The group made it back to the bakery without much fuss, where once again they settled at a table in the back to wait as the bakery closed and Mrs. Esterhouse came out to talk to them.

She started off by explaining, "Part of my job is to review what you did well and didn't. Runners were used for this to show respect for the wolves, and because no normal delivery service would take this delivery where it needed to go. It was also to show you some of the realities of Denver. I expect you to be offended by some of what I am going to say, but this review is part of your pay."

Smiling she said, "You were surprised by what you were moving, yes? Did you really think that I was going to send a group of complete unknowns on anything that might be traced back to me if you failed? Besides, do you have any idea what the most profitable type of item smuggled through this city is? Anyone?"

Juno's first though was guns, Kisada's drugs. Tabitha thought people, Jeremy and Atasaya figured it was a trick question, and Baye wasn't paying attention.

"Food. Real food accounts for 43% of all smuggling done in Denver. The corps don't like real food because it is a lot harder to control than their soy replacements. Did you know that people raised on a primarily soy-product diet are 15% less likely to develop magic? That is why I run this place, in addition to it being good cover."

She points at Juno, "You payed no attention when you came in here. You didn't look at the prices or the other customers, you just assumed that everything was overpriced and started ranting, drawing more attention than you would have by firing a gun before coming in. You made yourself stick out in a place where chrome is common, and half my customers only get real food through places like mine. Yes, the luxury items are expensive; even I can't get coffee easily, but the bread and sandwiches are affordable. Then, when we got to discussing the run, you were just too violent. Negotiating is good, when you have some leverage, but assuming that I want you to kill someone I just told you to be nice to is not."

She switches to Tabitha, "Did you pay any attention at all to where we are? Yes, we serve real food, but we do not cater to wealthy clients here. Asking my daughter, who appeared to you to be an ordinary clerk in service industry, if she goes yachting? Yes, she makes more than she appears, but that's because this whole thing is a family business. Boating would have gone over better. Oh, and the only troll who works here is my husband, so don't expect a job here. He's a phenomenal cook--those cookies you were salivating over were his own recipe. Both of you need to learn to blend a little better. Act like you fit in, and people will assume you do, unless you make some grossly inaccurate assumptions."

She moves on to Atasaya, "You're a shaman. You fit in everywhere precisely because you fit in nowhere. At least you bothered to check the astra, though you really should have checked me out as well. Always know your employer. Leaving on the run without at least looking at the details with a group you don't know you can trust is a bad idea as well."

Kisada gets, "If I didn't have my son and his friends visiting occasionally, you might as well have been advertising our meeting with your entrance."

To Jeremy, "You, too. Neither of you bought anything, you just walked straight over to join an established group, though at least you showed that you knew one of the people here."

Finally, Baye: "And you. Watch your language! This is a family establishment here. If you listened to the other customers, you would have noticed that not one of them cussed while they were here, not if they wanted to ever buy here again. On the plus side, you checked the details of the run immediately and asked questions about it, just not for the information you were missing."

"I told you to look out for a particular person, and not one of you asked for his description. I had to ask my son to stand with his friends instead of across the street where he was going to wait to make certain you had a chance of getting it right. None of you examined your vehicles when you left, meaning that none of you realized you were being recorded for the entire run--and being bet on by some of your prospective employers."

She raises a hand as the runners get a bit upset about that, "Don't worry, the feed was edited so nothing can be traced back to you, and you did nothing even questionably legal today. On future runs, you can choose to participate in the betting pools or run silent, though you get extra money for being in the pools--that is where most of your payment today came from. It is a great way to build a rep fast, or to ruin it if you do something stupid. On the other hand, do you know how many Johnson's have killed runners by strapping bombs to their vehicles instead of paying them? I don't do that, and nobody I would send you to does, but it was really popular a few years back during some corporate upheaval that meant half the Johnson's in town were new. Learning about it after the run drives it home better. I want you all to survive; I make more money if you keep doing runs."

"Juno, I was a bit surprised that you were the one to figure out what I meant and not respond to their provocation. The odds were 4 to 1 in favor of you starting something. In your favor, showing self control means that you won't be relegated to just wetwork. The temper you showed in here, with nothing to provoke you, was enough to leave me a bit worried on that front."

"On the whole, you guys handled yourselves fairly competently there. Magnun, the orc you got the milk from, also does runs, and has indicated willingness to work with some of you. She's good with all things weapon related."

"Kisada, flipping out over a scratch in the middle of a job is unprofessional. Missing that the scratch was less than 30cm from the camera that had been added to your bike could prove lethal."

Click to reveal..

Since I wrote that bit in, it won't affect your karma awards at all, Dozer. Nobody told me they were checking their vehicles, though, so the rolls stayed hidden.

"You all made it through the checkpoint without trouble, though you really should consider a different vehicle, Kisada. Then we get to the delivery itself. Not provoking the wolf much was a smart move. I say much because he could understand all of you, he just doesn't have the ability to speak a meta-human language. The one who took the milk is a contact I'm trying to develop. I have no idea how old she is, and don't really care. She's the only one of her kind I've met, so she could be 5 or 50, though I know she only recently decided to risk contacting humans. The emergence of parasapients is an untapped market and resource that a lot of people want a link to, and the wild ones seem to trust her more than any meta-human I know of."

She gets out some disposable credsticks and tosses them to the various runners. "Come back in a few days and I will give you contact information from people interested in hiring you for some more serious work, or just leave and make your own way. This job is concluded."

Click to reveal..

Sorry this is so late in coming and so lacking in detail. I wanted to make it more thorough, but I had a bad week last week, and am only finally recovering. Feel free to respond to any part of this post

[SalmonMax]

Juno patted herself mentaly on the back for sitting through the whole tirade. Her therapist would have been proud.

"I believe five hundred was the agreed on fee," she says, holding out a credstick. Be smart. Get paid first.

Once the balance had been transferred she leaned back and patted her pockets, making sure she wasn't forgetting anything. Finally she addressed Mrs Esterhouse.

"Okay. I have one big rule when it comes to employers, Mrs Esterhouse. Hell, when it comes to anyone, really. No games. And..." she laughed the laugh of someone who's too pissed off not to laugh. "...words frankly fail to describe the degree to which you have failed that rule. Let me put it on the table. Clear. Fucking. Communication."

She gestured at herself, at the others at the table. "We're professionals. This is what we do. You don't drag us over here and run us through some kind of rat maze, then hand us a report card at the end. If you have expectations for how we are to behave under your employ, you tell us. Boom, done. If you want us to say a certain something to a certain someone, you tell us what to say, and who to say it to. You give us what we need. If you're hiring us, then we'e on the same side. If you know something that will help us, you fucking tell us. What you do not do is jerk our collective chains for the amusement of yourself and your pals. People like you get people like me killed, and that I do not stand for."

Juno took a deep breath and calmed herself, then looked around. "Alright, I think I'm done. Anyone who's seriously going to work for her, good luck."

And with that, she got up and headed for the door.

(OOC - Wyrd! I dunno what to say! I thought long and hard, but the grim reality is that if Esterhouse is this kind of person, she and Juno are just not good matches. They'd ALWAYS be fighting. And it's just not realistic that she'd stay on...or that Esterhouse would keep her...unless something changes drastically. To be honest, this last post of yours came out of nowhere, or I'd have given you some warning or talked to you about it beforehand...but so it goes. Not every character is right for every game, I guess. )

[Atomicweasel]

Baye's pretty elfy eyes widened with disbelief as Mrs. Esterhouse began her ranting. By the time she got to him, he had a constipated squint. He was already reaching across the table for his credstick when Juno bombed her Esterhouse bridges from orbit, poured napalm on the rubble and pissed on whatever was left--which caused him to pause and gigglesnort into his fist with genuine amusement.

The urge to tell Mrs. Esterhouse what he thought of her was tempered by the urgency he felt in getting out of her anachronistic little deli and far away from her. That and the knowledge that five hundred creds would only buy so many bowls of ramen noodles. There was always the faint possibility that her connections might be slightly less douche-ladden.

The spry elf snatched up his cred-stick, jammed it into the back pocket of his dark jeans and fixed a wooden smile on his face. He tilted his chin up at the other runners by way of farewell and jogged unhurriedly out of the shop behind Juno.

"Hey, Shooter! Wait up! Can I get ride back downtown?"

[SalmonMax]

Juno looked back and nodded, waving him over with a swing of her arm.

"Sure...or wait, actually, lets do an exchange of services. One taxi ride in exchange for you helping dig whatever little cameras and feeds they stuck in my car out. You can do that, right?"

[Krugar Rockbiter]

Originally Posted By: Esterhouse

She moves on to Atasaya, "You're a shaman. You fit in everywhere precisely because you fit in nowhere. At least you bothered to check the astra, though you really should have checked me out as well. Always know your employer. Leaving on the run without at least looking at the details with a group you don't know you can trust is a bad idea as well."

Atasaya nodded every so slightly in acknowledgement of the obvious oversight, glad that he breathed to regret his mistake.

Originally Posted By: Esterhouse

...meaning that none of you realized you were being recorded for the entire run--and being bet on by some of your prospective employers."

His face was cast in his own shadow as he leaned forward slightly in anger.

I am not a dog to be wagered on. This is not a sim. Your lack of respect is profoundly disgusting.

His imagination ran wild as he suddenly saw himself standing up and ripping the table from the floor it was bolted to and smashing it into the small woman. Properly 'sedated' he then took her by the throat and ankles and broke her spine over his knee before throwing her through the front window.

That he could even imagine such a disrespect to a woman disturbed him, and showed how offended he was by her actions and those of her associates.

That this women continues to perform a function in society is ridiculous.

Originally Posted By: Esterhouse

She gets out some disposable credsticks and tosses them to the various runners. "Come back in a few days and I will give you contact information from people interested in hiring you for some more serious work, or just leave and make your own way. This job is concluded."

Without words to betray his thoughts, Atasaya pocketed the credstick and exited the shop, blinking a couple times as his eyes adjusted. Casting his gaze first one way and then the other, he shrugged and began walking. He pulled his snakes from his pocket and held them gently in his hand as he began humming a small chant to soothe himself.

[The Hospitaler]

((OOC: Let's just end this while we can *sigh*. Sorta feel like I'm being told how to roleplay my character through being berated by NPCs.))

Tabitha sighs. "Perhaps that's how you feel, Ms. Esterhouse. I think our time is at an end as well. There is some things I try to uphold as an identity, and I wasn't even given more than an address and time. I didn't know what to expect. If that's a federal crime, that's not the first I've committted."

She grabs her credstick, and flips it once in her hand before walking out.

"Jeremy... feel free to call. Maybe we can plan our next move."

[Jeremy]

"Just get me the rock from the Rover before you go." Jeremy said, but even though his hand slid over and took the credstick, he did not leave his seat. Not quite true, after the others left, he had gotten up, pocketed the credstick and went up to the counter. "Gimme a dozen of those cookies please." he politely ordered.

Going back to the table, he sat down. "Mrs. Esterhouse?" Jeremy called as the older woman started to walk away- then stopped and turned. "You know me. I've been doing this for a while, only reason here was to watch over Jane. And you know what? I got cocky, more lazy. I fucked up. And I assumed they knew about the animals off the roads... Even the cameras... not liking that, but ignorance like that- kills you."

By now five cookies had been wolfed down in short order. "Husband makes good stuff. Must have been his team's cook?"

[Wyrd]

Mrs. Esterhouse smiled at Jeremy and said, "People look at trolls and think, 'big, dumb, lazy' or, if they're honest, 'scary.' Most people don't realize that they also have a sharper sense of smell and taste than most, making the ones who choose to enter careers like cooking rather gifted. I had no idea what I was missing until he started fixing some of my dishes and showing me ways of making them better." She gets a mischievous twinkle in her eye that few people want to see in such a grandmotherly figure and finishes off with, "Then, when we finally got together, well, let's just say that size DOES matter."

[Jeremy]

"I'm sure it does." Jeremy commented, adding two cookies into his mouth at an alarming eating pace. Then he figured one more piece of business could be take care of. "One more thing." Reaching down from where Tabitha had left for him the rock before a peck and her goodbye, he hauled it up to the table for the benefit of Mrs. Esterhouse.

"Your client gave this to us before we left. Atasaya didn't think much of it, but I figured I shouldn't assume this was a bakebrain kind of gift. If you know a way to get it evaluated, I can pay you to config that."

[Wyrd]

"I'll be happy to check that out for you, sweetie. When you come back in a couple of days, I should have that all worked out for you."

[Jeremy]

Jeremy got up and shook hands with Ms. Esterhouse. "Sure thing, Dr. Know. Have a good one." He wrapped up his scant few cookies, popped one in his mouth for sugary good measure, then departed the bakery. Now to do something with his downtime...