Airships Over Aranor 14

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Arizan looks up from staring into a glass mug that her hand is just a little too big and claw-ended to pick up by the intended handle. "So..." Ann doesn't respond verbally for the moment, but moves her head some to indicate she's listening. "What did you ask for exactly?"
"Side of cow, cooked and seasoned." As precise and general vocabulary as possible for six words. "Do you eat them whole?"
"Well, not cows so much as, usually, wild prey. But dragons are too big to live on little pieces of animals."

"Do you need less food in a smaller shape?"
"...I don't know. But I am not exactly starving right now anyway."
"Don't use that form much?"
"No."
"Can you fly like that?"
"Well, this form is a little too heavy to really fly, but I can glide long enough to change back to my natural form."


It's a little later, from the human siblings' perspective. Charlotte is alone for the moment at an agreed meeting place while Conall and Khazu are off asking people after the latter's friend. 'Leave the recruiting to me', she'd said, and that is exactly what she's engaged in.
Unfortunately for both parties, the person she is currently trying to recruit is not very interested. 

"What's the matter, you don't like adventure?"

"Miss, I'm a merchant, not a mercenary."
"You don't travel?"
"I live in Rysinth. I own a store in Rysinth. It's right over there. I left it to do a brief errand. Now please get out of my way."

Luck is a dubious thing, and randomly accosting people on the street rarely gets the kind of results Charlotte is hoping for. Still, the Spirits have an uncanny way of arranging things sometimes. An Ekim who had walked out of the store in question notes the exchange and watches for a good minute or so before coming closer. "What journey are you talking about?" Charlotte immediately turns to the newcomer and forgets about the poor shopowner immediately, and he goes about his business as quickly as his feet can carry him.
 
The Ekim are historically a race almost as reclusive and secretive as the Fylenis, but unlike them the Ekim do not hide as individuals, and there has never really been grounds to question their very existence. Rather, there are a few relatively large islands off the coast of Magis which have long been their home. It is something of an unofficial country, which neither Rithara nor the Republic of Ardan lay claim to, but which has no official diplomatic relationships with other countries. Only Ekim have lived there for ages, and for a very long time it was taboo for other races to even visit. Their typical isolation has rendered the average Ekim's command of Common language (which used to be known as the human language until Draconis was discovered, at which point it had to be acknowledged that there were about twenty different human languages) not as strong as most other races, but whatever humor one may derive from their grammatical errors is about the only thing funny about them.

Ekim are a kind of warm-blooded humanoid lizard folk*, usually taller than humans. This particular one has pitch black scales across her body that shimmer in the sunlight. There are differences between Ekim men and women, subtle anatomical differences which a fellow Ekim may pick up on and be attracted or unattracted to immediately, but which the more mammalian races would have a hard time distinguishing; I say that to say that Ekim women do not have mammaries, being not mammalian, so it is perfectly normal for one, like this one, to not wear any kind of upper garment. The easiest way to distinguish gender of an Ekim, for anyone who doesn't know their anatomy all that well, is usually the voice; Charlotte recognizes fairly easily that the one speaking to her is female.
The Ekim traditionally honor the ability to fight, but the restraint to refrain from doing so; this may have something to do with their unique inherent power. An Ekim soul is hard-edged, thick and tough, and may be removed from their body in the shape of a weapon. A particular Ekim's soul takes on the shape of a particular weapon when it is drawn; at first the weapon is extremely basic without any unique traits whatsoever, but as the Ekim matures it grows more stylized and unique, eventually becoming exceptionally well-crafted and well-suited to the Ekim's particular fighting style. Ekim weapons can change form, but only in small ways that follow naturally from the original form's shape, and only to a maximum of three different forms. So for example, an Ekim pair of knives would sensibly be able to transform into a single, double-bladed knife, or perhaps even a bladed boomerang, but would not ever turn into a longsword. Ekim magic is elemental, similar to the elements of Elfin magic, but it is entirely channeled through their soul-weapon; hence, even a magic-ignorant human wielding an Ekim weapon with full permission from the soul that it is can use its inherent powerful magic.

You may have noticed that Verra, wielding an Ekim weapon, made exclusive use of lightning magic through it. This is because an Ekim weapon usually only channels a single element, and that particular weapon's element was electricity.

Enough of that. Charlotte answers the question in a thousandth of the time it probably took you to read all of that. "I got a tip from a guy about an ancient treasure, but it's probably just a way to lure people out to an isolated place so a bunch of bandits can rob them. So I'm looking for some people to help us take 'em down for adventure and profit."
"Pardon, 'us'? Who else is with you?"
"Oh, my brother and another guy. They'll be back soon."
"Hm." The Ekim considers the opportunity. "It sounds good."
"So you're interested?"
"Yes."
"Great! What got your attention first?"
"Like your hat. I, try it on?"
"...No. You have to earn a hat like this." She's obviously joking, but the Ekim plays along, pretending to have taken it seriously. Calling her by race is getting a little tedious; we should probably figure out what her name is. Maybe another guessing game is in order?

 
After last time, Edward has learned to take Raoclem's prophecies with at least twenty grains of salt--more if they sound particularly important. Still, he would not lie about this. Then again, there isn't that much to be done about it at the moment. Conall can and probably should hear about it before the Farran lifts off again, certainly, but there is someone else he knows who would probably want to know sooner rather than later.

Edward already left Raoclem and his...friend, or acquaintance, or whatever. He walked away showing a few marked signs of anger, which was purely to keep people from getting in his way for a bit and in no way an expression of his current emotional status, and began heading toward a certain tavern. Xach hadn't discussed his plans with everyone--and of course he needn't have mentioned them to anyone, since shore leave is one's own business as long as nothing illegal is involved--but he had mentioned them to Edward once. And Edward remembers these things.

A few streets along the way to the aforementioned tavern, Edwards stops short. He had been rehearsing the conversation with the Choneiji in his head, to ensure he had the last part straight, but didn't even get that far. He was stopped at Raoclem's reason for sending a fire dragon to attack the airship by a little thing in his head that informed him, That makes no sense.

The dragon did not damage the Farran. The only harm Arizan did to Conall's airship was a scorch mark one one side, which for reference is the equivalent of chipping the paint on an earth car. There is practically no way Raoclem didn't anticipate Conall taking the diplomatic approach, since Whys made it so easy. Furthermore, the dragon was basically completely unimportant to the attack of the Gran Daora. She literally hid in the engine room and didn't even know it happened. If the Choneiji actually knew Verra was going to attack their ship and meant to do something to affect it, he should have sent the dragon after her, or come up with something better..maybe arranging for a peacekeeper vessel to show up in the area. If he were somehow involved in her attack of the Farran, that is, for some reason on the pirates' side, there would have been some hint that he was. Verra would have mentioned that she had met Raoclem when Conall brought him up during the 'negotiations'.
Quickly getting out of the way of traffic after what felt like a long period of time thinking but in fact only took a few seconds or so, Edward goes back over the conversation again, looking for hints. If Raoclem lied about his reason for sending the dragon, why? And what was the real reason?

*--I mean in the same way that Earth's dinosaurs are theorized to have been warm-blooded. Clearly this is a biological possibility and does not require magic to explain.

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From: http://www.mspaforums.com/showthread.php?42524-Airships-Over-Aranor-Prose