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--- campaigns:taika-daagru:2024-05-11 [2025-01-12 02:18] – Today's stuff pinkgothic
+++ campaigns:taika-daagru:2024-05-11 [2025-03-23 02:11] (current) – Today's session pinkgothic
@@ Line 170: / Line 170: @@
 Just fast enough, as the top of ladders was clanging against the handrails, and soon lanterns and reed helmets were peeking from below. But there was no need to cut off paths of escape; Kukri and Giya, the latter looking powerfully sick, were down on the frosty ground. A dozen people stood around them, with the padded jackets and green banners of Chaatai police, most of them carrying air rifles and ice hammers. One, who had a teratorn sigil on her jacket, stated with a voice as level the sea pack: "Identify yourselves".
+**pinkgothic**:
+"I am Kukri Taika-Daagru, of the Society of Natural Philosophy of Grikaa," Kukri obeyed the instruction, blinking in disorientation. The driver's urgent advice - //Leave if you have any sense!// - clashed with the uniforms. Had they been stolen? Why would the police cause a sled to crash, and try to get its riders to abandon their cargo? She limped into better view, hoping that it would be seen as a sign of cooperation. It was good that it was almost an instinct - with these numbers against them, cooperation was the only viable strategy, anyway. "This is my protégé, Giya." She didn't hide the confusion from her voice. "With no disrespect intended, what is going on here?"
+**Concavenator**:
+The officer tilted her head and looked at them sternly, up and down. "You're hereby detained on suspicion of contraband and general crimes against order. You're advised to produce documents proving your identity and present yourselves for perquisition". She had spoken calmly, and the air rifles were mostly pointed at the frozen ground, though it would take an eyeblink to turn them against a target. Their glances, too, wandered all over, on the sled, on the trees, on both directions of the hard sled-path, and on the travellers too -- though it seemed that they set on Giya much longer and more often than on Valcen.
+**pinkgothic**:
+The emotion Kukri felt was a mixture of annoyance and relief. They had no contraband and she had done nothing that would be considered a crime against order, so this was a matter that, while it set her back in schedule, should be able to clear up just fine, as soon as her heart stopped beating quite so frantically.
+"I presume we were traveling with criminals, then," Kukri mused, slipping her bag down to - with cautious motions, as not to startle anyone who was armed - look for the identification papers that gave her marginal authority to speak for the Guild so far out as Yakak'ratu, if certainly not back home, where the Major Members did the same. Quite calmly, ignoring her own body that was still rigged for a fight now that this no longer seemed like a threat to her, she added: "That would explain why they ran as fast as they did." And, for that matter, why she had felt unease about their mannerisms. "I had thought the crash might have been a pirating ploy from their reaction - that someone wanted their cargo."
+**Concavenator**:
+The teratorn-marked officer -- a sergeant, probably -- nodded with strange nonchalance. "Hm-mh. Let's see. How many were they? When and where did you meet them? Who was governing the vessel? What is in the crates? Where does the other come from?" Another officer stood by Kukri, with a keen interest in the content of her bag, exactly where Giya was standing a few moments before.
+**pinkgothic**:
+"There were two," Kukri answered the questions in order. "We met them in Yakak'ratu - I had completed a survey expedition further south from there that Giya kindly helped me with and was in dire need of transportation back home, since the resources my Guild blessed me with have run dangerously low, and I prefer not to starve," she continued, allowing herself a fragment of levity, though her tone was friendly and conversational rather than sarcastic, as though she were sharing in the joke with a loose friend. "I did not have the good sense to ask the sled drivers for their names - they had a sled and were willing to take me back to Grikaa, and I thought them merchants ferrying blubber and fine goods between the two, and I wanted rest, not chatter.
+"I do not know what is in the crates, but by your involvement I assume I erred when I assumed legitimate trading goods. And Giya..." - just as she found her documents in her somewhat unwieldy bag with its materials for tenting and presented them with a respectful gesture, she also swept her muzzle to amicably gesture at her new protégé - "...made my expedition possible. She is from Yakak'ratu and I have adopted her as my protégé. I would have been in dire danger without her guidance and it would be no exaggeration to say I owe her my life. The least I can do is to introduce her to my Guild."
+**Concavenator**:
+The sergeant grabbed the documents and scanned them quickly. At least, she found no reason for immediate complaint; whether she believed Kukri's answers was a whole other matter. Giya was now standing many paces away; another officer was interrogating her. She was much more cowed than Kukri, with her head hunched into her chest and her back bristling, though they were too far away for Kukri to hear exactly what they were saying.
+The sergeant turned somewhat more cooperative. "Very well. We will confirm with the guild in Grikaa. You will be both in custody until we receive a response". She handed back the papers and sharply turned toward Giya, studying her for several heartbeats. Then, in a more conversational tone, but still staring at Giya, she said: "I've never seen the like of that in a higher guild. Is that what she's for? You wouldn't be the first philosopher who got bored with books and touchstones."
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Naturally," Kukri nodded in response to them wanting to confirm the matter with the guild. It was annoying and tedious to utmost degree, not to mention a manner of humiliating, but it would do no good to complain about it, and the answer was certain.
+"I grant it's unusual, but she really is my protégé. As you can see, she has much to learn," Kukri remarked, but she did so with fondness in her voice, and dared to approach the two that were locked in unpleasant conversation, with the full intention of smoothing whatever hackles were raised back down with what little authority she'd managed to salvage.
+**Concavenator**:
+With a non-committal grunt, the sergeant let Kukri walk toward Giya, following her closely as if she feared escape.
+"... really sick of having to freeze my tail off 'cause you lot can't be bothered to-- ma'am?" The officer stopped in the middle of a tirade as they approached. In fact, she seemed confused by the fact that Kukri was not already in chains. Giya did not speak or move from her spot, but her head imperceptibly swiveled in the mound of her bristling chest to turn an eye onto her friend. Very heavy breaths vapored from her nostrils.
+**pinkgothic**:
+"My apologies, I've been engaged in conversation of my own," Kukri remarked. "So I don't know what's the matter here. Is there something I can help clarify about my protégé?" she asked. The very fact she was calm now, well-spoken and polite would likely help to notch the officer's stress levels down a notch and make some less brash dialogue possible.
+**Concavenator**:
+"This lady claims to be a philosopher", said the sergeant curtly, pointing at both travellers in succession with her muzzle, "and this her 'protégé'. Both are to be in custody until verification". The officer recomposed herself and nodded stiffly. "Yes ma'am. Uh, the suspected smuggler here present is not responding properly to interrogation". She looked at Kukri. "Is she a ward of yours?"
+**pinkgothic**:
+"Giya is my protégé," Kukri reiterated. "And I apologise that we seem to have, by way of my naivité and desire to get back to Grikaa as soon as possible, gotten entangled in all of this. As the sergeant has said, we are in your custody for now, and that is well and good. You will find the papers are in order, but it is understandably your duty to check. We will give you no trouble, but I believe there really isn't anything we can tell you that I haven't already told the sergeant." There was a distinct tiredness to her voice - between the damage to her body from the crash and her limp, her body was taking its toll. "That said, I'm happy to try. What questions were you asking?"
+**Concavenator**:
+"Hm. What business she had with the vessel, what was she carrying, what was she planning to do with the contraband, who was she travelling with, and where her paperwork was. She refuses to speak clearly. We can get a statement from you instead, if you accept to be accountable for her conduct".
+**pinkgothic**:
+Kukri nodded amicably. As much as it was wearing her down, she would never hold ill will to people who were trying to solve a crime, regardless how embarrassing it was that she had landed in its periphery, and so she volunteered the answers she could: "The business with the vessel was the same as mine - we needed transportation to Grikaa, as we cannot very well walk there on foot, especially since I've hurt one of mine." It was said in a good-natured tone, not in one of complaint. "She was carrying very little, on account of previously possessing almost nothing of note. You see her now as she is and what she has. I initially gave her some payment to assist me with research back in Yakak'ratu, but she went above and beyond her duties and so I have promised her apprenticeship as well," Kukri smiled to Giya. "And from all that you can infer she was travelling with me... and that she is still a little new to polite society."