And lo, did the warriors return, disheartened by the damage they had taken, but they had indeed driven off the Skorne threat, though perhaps the Skorne merely retreated. Regardless, they had work to do as the repairs on their Jack's were going to be enormous, luckily though they hadn't actually completely destroyed any of the pieces, so repair was possible.
It was with this in mind that the group gathered around, their leader, Finnegan, looked at all of them, tired, worn and disheveled. "We'll take a rest and then get started on the repairs, but the evenings are your own assuming we don't get called out again. We all need a rest from this twenty-four hours a day danger. Also the repairs are significant enough that somebody needs to head round to the guard captain's office and pick up our pay. I suspect he's got it closed down for now so we'll get it later."
They all got a good rest that evening and on the morning the sounds of repairs could be heard. Lucky and Taltos were in dire need of some repairs so it was to get those two back up and running that the crew started on them. But with four mechaniks the work on the two jacks went quickly. Disassembled, each mechanik took a major system in hand and began the repairs, sorting out the oddities of the damage and repairing what they could. Taking advantage of their contacts to get parts brought in on credit for now, they managed within that days worth of work to get the majority of the repairs completed so that they now had four jacks, damaged admittedly, but still four working jacks. Late that afternoon, while Finnegan kept working on some finicky pieces, he sent out the others to get their pay and to enjoy the rest of the day at the bar. So it was that Andrew, Dmitriy and Emma head out to the Broken Anvil to enjoy a hard earned rest.
The Anvil wasn't terribly full today. A strange fur clad human sat with a trollkin drinking some and chatting in a foreign language. One of the Rhulic folk sat at the bar, tended by a Nyss, the two chatting quietly as well as the bartender served him a fine ale. Two others, each sitting by themselves also were in the Anvil, a resting ogrun laborer and a mysterious Iosan woman.
Dmitriy decided he felt like getting lucky this evening and immediately headed over to hit on the Iosan, his opening line was pretty weak but not enough to scare her off. Andrew, with nothing better to do joined Dmitriy, all of Dmitriy's attempts at making it clear he was on the prowl rolling right over the oblivious warcaster.
Emma on the other hand headed straight to the bar, ordering a drink and starting up a conversation with the Rhulic trader, who's name she learned was Paul. He was a merchant in the town and very disturbed by the rumors he was hearing as he had a load of material to move north shortly and the military couldn't provide any kind of escort. This piqued Emma's interest and she chatted up the merchant trying to discover what he had heard about the danger to the city, in particular what he had heard about the 'mercenaries defending the city'.
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| After the last few days of hard labor, the Mechanik's take a day off for a drink and some entertainment! |
Meanwhile on the other side of the bar Andrew's warcaster armor had apparently caught the interest of the elf chick who nodded to Dmitriy's lines, while moving closer and closer to Andrew. The seduction took a turn when she clearly started ignoring Dmitriy and literally took a seat on Andrew's lap to ask him about how he had survived the brutal massacre of all the rest of the warcasters and jack marshals in town. For andrew this was the first time he apparently thought about the fact that the attacking Iosans had been targeting warcasters specifically. Apparently not so quick on the uptake, but he also decided that this one was clearly different and he wasn't going to stop this seduction.
Dmitriy, being a bit more perceptive than his warcaster partner, could tell when he wasn't wanted and so he decided to start drinking with the Ogrun laborer, striking up a conversation consisting of Dmitriy's questions and one word answers from his Ogrun drinking buddy. Who mostly was willing to listen to it since Dmitriy was buying the rounds.
Emma, by this point had finished her conversation with Paul, who decided to head back to his shop, after securing a promise from Emma to think about protecting his caravan at some point when he asked. He promised her in return full access to his stock of jack parts at cost, no markup guaranteed. Bereft of her drinking buddy Emma migrated on over to the trollkin and human who apparently didn't speak any languages in common with Emma but alcohol has it's own language and it was only a short time before Emma and the Barbarian started up a drinking contest. A match that at first seemed utterly ridiculous, after all Emma was nearly half the size of the barbarian but she held her own in this match like a champion and 8 massive mugs in the battle was neck and neck with both contestants clearly feeling their drink. This final drink though caused all of the previous alcohol to finally catch up to Emma, clearly from a lack of beer nuts, as her companion, barely sober, put his glass down, while Emma just kept going backwards, out like a light before she even hit the floor.
The impressive display of prowess though had put the crew in a good mood and even the Ogrun was apparently impressed with her nearly drinking the burly human under the table, and so he was perfectly fine with scooping up the unconscious woman at the behest of her companion Dmitriy. The three of them, Dmitriy, the ogrun and Emma returned to the shop, leaving Andrew to his fate. A fate that got even more interesting when the lady in question invited him back to her place for the evening, an offer he decided not to refuse. Common sense was not strong with this one, as not even his friends knew where he had left to this time.
Back at the shop Finnegan noted the return of some of his companions and nodding to Dmitriy he frowned, "Where's the pay from the captain?" And the look of surprise on Dmitriy's face told Finnegan all he needed to know. None of the group had remembered that they had to pick up their pay, so the next day they would have to go out after it. Emma was put to bed to sleep off the drink while Finnegan and the Ogrun spoke quietly about the possibility of permanent work, after all with the crew out it would be good to have additional help, and so they hired on Allan Ogrun'son to watch the shop and provide help with the work on the jacks.
Fade to black, with a satisfied air of somebody who has enjoyed his evening completely and robustly, Andrew awakened the next morning to the sounds of his companion departing early. He had barely opened his eyes before hearing some words in his ears spoken softly, "Thank you for the evening. Though you should be careful who you go home with. My sisters would not have killed you kindly." The humor and mild bite to them left him puzzled but fully awake and he had but a moment to notice as he companion of the previous evening left through the door leaving him alone in the room.
Andrew dressed quickly heading back to the shop where he found that Dmitriy and Emma were just getting ready to leave for the Captain's to pick up their pay. Finnegan and Allan were going to get some more work done on the repairs, as well as work on some new gear for both Arkadi and Finnegan himself(craft). So the three of them set off to pick up their pay.
Arriving at the guard's barracks they first had to deal with a surly guard who didn't want them disturbing the Captain. An attempt at intimidation by Emma failed miserably, as did an attempt by Dmitriy to convince the guard otherwise. Only the commanding presence of Andrew in his warcaster armor seemed to have some influence and the straightening back of the guard was all they needed to bully past him with Andrew congratulating him on his improved posture and attitude.
Arriving at the Captain's office the three of them knocked, received permission to enter and proceeded to have a similar conversation to the one with the guards. The Captain was happy to pay them, but noted that since they only had 2 fully working jacks he should only pay them half the normal amount. Again attempts at negotiation by Dmitriy and intimidation by Emma failed to make any impression on the dwarven Captain who seemed almost amused at their antics, but Andrew's call to his patriotism, his foresight and the fact that their fees were really not that significant compared to keeping this major city safe. Those commanding words, inspiring just really hit the nerves of the captain. His spine straightened, his head tilted back as though looking off into the distance and he nodded at the salient points describing his military brilliance, his tactical acumen, his strategic insight. He nodded and congratulated them on seeing through his little subterfuge, clearly they too had the understanding to defend the city. So he turned over the back due payments to the crew which departed there in high spirits, having secured their contractual pay.
And so they spent the next couple of days finalizing repairs, moving Taltos and Lucky's cortex's on over to newly repaired Talon bodies, and finishing up a few crafting projects of their own. It was with this new equipment and outlook that they awoke a week later to a knock at the door where Paul and the guard Captain stood waiting for them, a new job was clearly on the plate.
Next time, A Trip to Corvis.
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