We're off to see the Wizard! That is really a statue.

[flamingshortshorts]

Characters: Toro Raymond, Tony Stark (616), Booker DeWitt, Mai
Date: Backdated to started on 4/13-4/18
Location: outside of Keeliai
Situation: Escorting pilgrims to the Shrine of Iashu and back, landslides, carnivorous birds, rain, all that good stuff.
Warnings/Rating: Language maybe, mudstripping

[They might have been running a little behind schedule, but so far so good. The kedan were very determined about getting to the shrine, despite the poor weather, so what else could they do but make sure they got there? Maybe someone should have mentioned that it was landslide season, or the birds liked to try and eat the natives, but all in all it could have gone worse...right?

Too bad they couldn't take the compass back with them, though.]

{OOC: Feel free to make comments for to the shrine, at the shrine, and the return trip.}

Comments

EXPLOSIONS!

[washitaway]

[His injuries this time are minor - superficial. Just a couple of bruises and scrapes. He looks worse than he actually is, what with all the mud that seems to get everywhere.

Booker will be glad to get back home. Elizabeth will fuss, and he'll acquiesce, like always. It's a sort of routine between them. She'll worry about whether he'll catch cold, and feed him up, and get him dry clothes. Booker likes coming home to his daughter.

But as they approach the city, he squints against the rain and the fading light - something is, well -]

Something's wrong.

[maipokerface]

[Oh so very dryly:]

It's not birds again, is it.

[washitaway]

I only wish.

[He thinks there's smoke there, on the horizon, above the city.]

Wasn't a bonfire scheduled for today, was there? [The dread in the pit of his stomach is growing. This is not right. There is something very, very wrong going on, he can feel it.]

[maipokerface]

Not that I know of.

[Now Mai is squinting a bit, trying to look closer.]

[washitaway]

[Booker takes a whiff of the breeze coming from the city, and frowns.]

Smells like burning. This is bad. [He is intimately familiar with the smell - the smell of burning people, even, though they're still too far away for him to know for sure.]

[maipokerface]

[The smell of burning isn't exactly uncommon to Mai. For her it smells like a regular fire, though it probably shouldn't smell this intensely given how far they are from the city still.]

Looks like it.

[Mai turns a bit to those behind her, mostly kedan they had escorted.]

Stay put a moment.

[She looks to the rest of the group now.]

Someone else keep an eye on them. We can't all go down into the city just yet.

[washitaway]

Goddammit. [He mutters the curse under his breath as he draws his pistol and starts moving forward.]

This is probably his doing. [And Booker's daughter is in the city - maybe safe at home, maybe something else entirely.]

[maipokerface]

The big bad that can't be named?

[What, was he cropping up now? Hadn't he been more or less sitting around for thousands of years doing crap all?]

[washitaway]

Every time somethin' bad happens, it's him.

[Please, Mai. Booker knows. He's been here a while. His mouth turns down and he starts forward, toward the city at a quick trot.]

I have to find my daughter.

[maipokerface]

[For a moment Mai hangs back, just eyeing the city from this distance. Hearing the man's tone of voice she's not of a mind to try and stop him. And as she stands there, her first thought skips to that stupid ex of hers being somewhere in the city too.

Not that she could go looking for him. Not that he needed her to look for him. He was more than capable of caring for himself, at least when boiling lakes weren't involved. They hadn't even really talked since she arrived.

Mai finally starts picking her way down the rocks as well, heading toward the city. She might as well be following, though she's doing so from a distance. She's not about to try to stop the man or slow him down, she knows what it's like to have very little time on your hands and another's life in the balance.]

[washitaway]

[Booker is aware that she's behind him, somewhere - vaguely, anyway. He's completely focused on getting to his suite, on finding Elizabeth, but after a while he turns to Mai.]

What's your Sector?

[maipokerface]

Fire.

[A beat, then:]

I won't slow you down or anything but if you need someone to help find your daughter... I can try.

[There's some sympathy in there, not because she knows what it's like to have a child or maybe even worry about a family member like that. She sure hadn't worried much about Tom-Tom at one point.

For a loved one though... no, I'm not going to go looking for that moron.]

[washitaway]

Earth. If - she'll be home, if she can get there, if she's not -

[If she's uninjured, of course, but Booker has no idea where she could be - Elizabeth likes to be out and about, she almost never sits at home during the day even when she could. And he's been gone for almost a week, so who knows?

He knows if she can, she'll try to get home, to safety, if home is even still standing.]

What the hell is goin' on?