Mysteries of Magitek (Mystearica x Erotica Maxima)

In the skies over Jadran, ships of all manner soared. Big, small, sleek or robust they skimmed clouds like a sloop might crest the ocean, dark shapes casting black spots among the fluffy white that Jadran was so well known for. Most ships soared unimpeded, powered by magitek drives based on the application of naturally occurring crystals called Valycite.

"Most" was the operative word here.

Inara Valys let out a string of curses that would have made a sailor proud as she jogged along the deck of her own ship, a simple affair of sivler and white called Faerie III (the first being an unmitigated disaster that couldn't even get off the ground and the second... wasn't spoken of since The Incident).

"Come on you blasted contraption! I gave you life and I can take it away just as easily!" The second mana drive went out, the ship beginning to dip below the cloud line.

"... well, go ahead and call my bluff why don't you."

Inara fled for the bridge once more, strapping herself in. This... was going to be a bumpy ride.

The Faerie touched down rather forcefully some mile and a half outside the settlement of Trieste, tearing up tree and ground alike. She hadn't dressed for the occasion, clad in a dark green sweater and tight black leggings as opposed to, say, a full body crash suit. She was jostled like mad despite the straps, the ship skipping across the forest's ground like a stone across a pond, finally terminating in an enormous oak tree, the wood splintering and trapping the Faerie between trunk and dirt.

It was a quiet kind of day, on a slow month, of a sleepy year. Saying she'd taken a sabbatical from her usual line of work was something of an understatement, but things were getting a little boring. Repetitive, even. She needed a change, she needed something new, something different. She needed to relax... And this was so Gods-be-damned boring that she'd have loved nothing more to have her fingers around someone's neck, and have that familiar tingling feeling in her knuckles after loosening a few teeth. Working as hired-muscle wasn't the most rewarding of tasks. People with the coin to hire her usually thought that she was some dumb brute that they could walk all over, throw insults, force her to do the most inane of tasks. At least, they did until she got tired of it and decided the coin wasn't worth it any more. That was usually when they realised that while she was big, while she was strong, and maybe not the smartest person around, having her on their side was a whole lot better than having her against them. A few broken bones, maybe a wrecked up estate, and possibly a little looting later, she usually felt good enough to formally hand in her resignation, and be on her way to find a new job. But, it had gotten a little repetitive, so she'd decided to go on a vacation, get back out and in touch with nature, away from the cities, away from the Magitek engines that were all over the place these days, away from everything. Just her, on her own... With nothing to do.

She had to think back and wonder how she ended up in the middle of the woods, a few miles out of Trieste, after working a few years as a bouncer, as a bodyguard, as an enforcer. Well, it was that or go back to being a Mercenary, and the risk to pay ratio on that just wasn't worth it any more. Either she worked on her own as a freelancer, and got paid a pittance to go on suicide missions, or she signed up with a company, and had to work with a group of people who usually had no idea which end of a sword to stick someone with. And then have to split the prize with the idiots. She knew she couldn't go back to the Horde, they'd been disbanded after they were defeated in the Battle of the Jadran Plains. Those were the good days... Enemies on the left, on the right, in front and behind, there were no shortage of fights, and the pay was good. There was never a shortage of loot, and there was never a night she went alone in her tent. Mm... Those were the glory days... She had soldier's at her beck and call, she had camp followers begging at her heel day and night, she had everything an Orc could have wanted. Pity it all had to go pear-shaped like it did, but when the King said 'Hey, lets all go charge these giant Magitek tanks with swords and stuff!', you know it won't end well. Probably why she bailed on the army before the end. She'd rather be called a disgrace than be dead. Honour was good and all, but she preferred being alive.

She sighed as she poked her little camp fire with a stick, smoke lazily rolling up into the canopy of the trees, when a shadow passed over, and her eyes cast upward. She frowned as she straightened up, catching sight of something zooming past, bigger than any bird she knew of in these parts. Her frown deepened when she realised that it was an airship, one that was going down pretty fast... And with an almighty crash, she felt the tremors from where it hit the ground, the sound of the crash hitting her a half-second later. She made a noise in her throat as she thought about it, before she rose to her feet, and made her way around to her tent. She'd need pants if she was going to go and see what salvage she could scrounge up from that...

By the time the orc made her way to the fallen Faerie, smoldering wreck that it was, there came a somewhat pitiful cry. "Little help, please?" The voice was smooth and warm, like dripping chocolate, annnd more than a little worried considering. The ship was not going to be moving anywhere soon -- its primary mana drive had gone spiraling through the trees once the ship had crashed, taking out the top half of a rather small tree. Smoke billowed out of the engine compartment though at the very least the ship had not yet been set aflame.

"Wait... wait, no! I got it!" came that voice again. There came a muffled thud fro mthe bridge and a whimpering sound. Inara, her shirt torn at the sleeve and a bruise forming along her left side, clawed her way out of the bridge. There was a small magibot floating just above her, a lens connected to a small dome that sparkled and shimmered with the iridescent light of a compact mana drive.

Inara dragged herself up onto the railing, trying to keep her food down. There had been a LOT of tumbling all the way down to the ground. Though now she was stuck some fifteen feet above the ground, trying to find some way to clamber down from railing to forest floor. Pretty much all of her tech had been destroyed in the crash, leaving her with nothing more than the bot and a simple defensive weapon, a baton on her hip that would do great in personal defense... but had done little to keep the Faerie from being shot out of the sky.

Considering the trail of destruction the airship had left on it's way down, it hadn't been all that hard for her to track it's final resting place. Unfortunately, that just so happened to be up in the trees and not on the ground, where she could have easily pulled a few things apart. She sighed as she approached, resigned to the fact that she'd have to hack down a tree before she could get anything that was worth anything, and on top of that, she'd probably break half what wasn't already broken when she'd eventually bring it down. Well, it wasn't ideal, but in the end, she'd still make a little coin out of something that luck and chance had thrown her way, so it was all good. She scratched the back of her head as she thought about how best to go about it all, not wanting to knock down a tree, only to have it caught in another one. She supposed it was a good thing that the crash hadn't set half the forest on fire, or exploded or something like that. Magitek wasn't always the most stable contraptions, in her experience. Hit it in the right place, or plug up one of the pipes and things tended to go a little haywire. Well, she wasn't an expert at that kind of stuff, she was better at hitting things that knowing how they worked.

She pulled her axe from her belt as she decided to get to work, rather than stand around scratching herself for half a day, gripping the short haft in both hands, pressing the blade against the bark of the tree, lining up her first blow, when she heard something that made her ears twitch. She frowned and paused, before she pulled back, ready to take that swing, when she heard something again. Sounded a lot like a voice... Must've been imagining things... She pulled back again, just about to commit herself to the swing, when she definitely heard something thud up above her, the branches in the tree shaking and leaves falling down. She caught herself right before she swung and looked up, blinking as she realised that there was something up there, something moving about in the ship. Survivors? Well... That could be a problem... Maybe if they were half dead, it wouldn't hurt to just finish the job? Depended how how much the loot looked like it'd net her. She didn't want to off someone for junk that'd get her a few coppers or something like that. Better to have someone owe her a favour in that case.

"Hey! If you're alive up there, let me know, so I don't kill you by chopping down this tree!" She called up, taking a few steps back so she could better see the ship. She slipped her axe back into her belt and placed a hand on her hip. "My name's Amara!" She called, standing and waiting for a reply. She wasn't too sure of this... Thinking on it, they could be armed. That'd make things complicated... But, if she just got on the other side of the tree, they'd have a hard time getting a shot at her, and she'd feel a whole lot better about thinking of killing them in that case as well. Only thing to do would be to wait and see what came out.

Inara's slow hobble-drag brought her all the way to the precarious edge of the ship. Once there and... mostly-sorta-kinda-sure that she wasn't about to lose her meager breakfast, she wrapped both arms around the side and glanced directly down... finding herself face to face with an orc, give or take something like fifteen feet between them, most of which was vertical. Inara made an involuntary sound in the back of her throat. Her place in the capital city of Adria had been mostly free of beings like orcs. The Horde was a far-off threat and it had been Valycite -- by no mere coincidence close to her own last name -- that had made the threat all the further by blowing it the hell apart.

She was something that she had never seen before. There were a handful of their kind in Adria but for the most part they REALLY didn't travel in the same social circles. It was a class thing. And a literacy thing. And a hygiene thing. And she totally was not racist for thinking any of these things.

"Um. Please don't! I think I've fallen enough for today!" Inara called out. "My name's Inara. If you'll... um. Is there anything you can do to help me? I... appear to be stuck up here! Maybe..." She didn't WANT to do it, but... "... maybe you could catch me? I'm... not the lightest girl but you..." The orc lady was VERY muscular by any standards Inara had ever had, and it looked like she could catch her. "... look like you could manage it! Please? I have, um. I have coin!" Inara said.

The other woman didn't need to know how MUCH coin, since the meager amount Inara ever had reason to carry with her really wasn't all that much. The Faerie had been worth a pretty penny but much of it was trashed. By far the most valuable thing was Inara herself, and she had learned well enough over the past 24 hours that she needed to keep that much a secret.

Amara raised an eyebrow when a Human crawled over the side of the ship. She should have expected as much, but she didn't say anything. They did like getting themselves in all kinds of trouble. Raising an eyebrow, she listened to her idea of how to get down, but her eyesight wasn't bad enough to notice that the girl wasn't a twig. Not that Amara minded at all, but from that height, it'd be a pretty hard fall to stop. She weighed it all up in her head, mulling it over, but it wasn't till the Human mentioned 'coin' that she started to lean toward going through with it. After all, Amara had caught heavier things in her life, she'd caught a cannonball once that'd been fired at her... Granted, most of her ribs were broken in the attempt, and she hadn't been able to walk for a week, but she'd won the bet and hadn't had to pay for a drink in the town of Ayreshire since. Catch the Human, get paid? Didn't sound like a bad deal... Besides, once she was down, Amara could see what else she could wring out of her. Not to mention, once she was out of the ship, she could always just fell the tree and rifle through the ship, go back to the salvaging idea.

Amara shrugged, "Y'know what? Sure. Coin for a catch sounds like a fair deal. But mind you try and land in my arms and not on my face. I'd want to at least have drinks before we get to that!" She said with a chuckle. Amara wasn't one of those prissy Orcs that thought that it should all be kept in the race. She saw something pretty? She wanted to mount it. Simple as that, and she was more than equipped to mount most things. Eh, if the coin was no good, and the Human wasn't too bad looking, maybe they could work out a different deal... But, she shouldn't get her hopes up. She was a fair ways up, and Amara hadn't gotten a good enough look at her yet, to tell if she wanted to take her back to camp, or find a road and send her on her way. From what she'd been able to tell though, it did seem to be leaning toward the former. Though, her judgement may have been out, it'd been months since she had more company than her right hand, which was starting to wear thin on her...

She sniffed and spread her stance, bracing herself for the catch. She rolled her shoulders and intertwined her fingers, pushing them out till her knuckles cracked. "Alright..." She said, half to herself, before she looked up, patting her thighs. "Alright! C'mon, jump and I'll catch you!" As she said that, a thought crossed her mind, as they usually did right before someone took a leap of faith. What if the ship comes down on top of me? Hm. Too late, she guessed? She'd just have to try and get out of the way quickly enough.

"H'okay. Just... stay right where you are!" Inara called. She retreated from the side of the ship and very swiftly rifled through her cabin. She collected what few personal effects she had -- her satchel, filled with what money she had not to mention her journal, a few crystals for her small bot, and a coat -- it wasn't cold enough to warrant it yet but one never knew when they'd need it. The spartan remains of the Faerie's cabin thoroughly plundered, Inara returned to the deck of the ship and got to the very edge of it. The ship was leaned this way a bit which meant it was the obvious side to come down on. Maybe hse idn't consider weight but she really needed the fall to be shorter than longer.

She threw a leg over the side and then the other, settling her feet on the outside while she clung to the ship with her hands. "Alrighty! Amara, just... get ready!" Inara called. She psyched herself up, and was about to let go when... the ship shifted.

Inara was jostled loose fairly easily and she fell, her stomach leaping into her throat as she fell the intervening space. It was not terribly graceful (falls rarely were) but it was a lucky fall, enough to fall right down into the arms of the orc.

Which might have been a nice moment in and of itself, but the tree groaned beneath the Faerie's bulk... and it all began to fall in the most horrible and predictable of ways -- right toward them.

It all happened in slow motion, as things like this usually did for Amara. She saw the Human hanging over the edge of the airship, ready to drop down to her, when suddenly it all lurched and down she came. Amara grit her teeth and corrected for the Human's fall, sliding a few inches to her left, making sure that she was right over her core when she felt her hit her arms. Her muscles strained to their limit, not only to keep her standing, but to slow the Human's fall to a stop, rather than just catch her like a pair of metal poles. She didn't want her to break on her arms, after all. She grunted loudly, feeling her shoulders instantly ache, her legs burning, and she was sure that she sunk an inch or two into the ground. She was reasonably sure that was more because of the fall than the Human's weight, which was lighter than Amara was expecting. Still, having her in her arms brought back those thoughts of taking her to her tent... One hand behind her shoulders, the other around her thighs, Amara's fingers shifted slightly, and lightly squeezed her rear. The corner of her mouth turned up into a small smirk and a brow rose, some kind of witty one-liner ready to throw at the Human, when her breath caught in her throat, the creaking, groaning of the tree catching her attention.

She looked up to see the ship tilting further, and taking most of the tree with it. Instead of flirting, she grit her teeth, forced some feeling back into her legs and turned on the spot, not the complete opposite direction, only an idiot would try and get out of the way of a falling tree like that. No, she turned to her left, and dived as far as she could, the Human still in her arms, feeling the ground leave them behind, just in time for the heavy, ship-laden tree to fall behind them with a thunderous crash. Half a second later, she felt the ground rejoin them as her own body crashed into the leafy ground, the wind knocked out of her as she lay on the ground, giving a small groan of her own. She lay there a moment, regaining her breath, before she gave herself a very quick once-over, making sure everything was still there. She wiggled her toes, bent her knees, made her ears twitch, and then quite purposely, squeeze the Human's rear again, before she opened her eyes and looked up at her. Yep, definite tent material right there. "Everything still working. How 'bout you?"

Sne slipped her arms out from under the Human, Inara, and pulled her knees under her, pushing herself up from the ground. She brushed leaves off her tight, tan tunic, which clung to the form of her torso. Her hands brushed down to her leggings, thin and leather, down the inside of one of her thighs was a long and rather obvious bulge, which she batted a few clingy leaves from, before she checked her elbows. A few grazes, but nothing serious. "Hmph... I'd say you were pretty lucky I came along." She said, looking over her shoulder at the tree and the ship. "Now, about some sort of compensation for my trouble?" She asked, watching the Human with an appraising look.

For Inara, who had the reflexes of a particularly unobservant sponge, everything went by in a blur -- the fall, the odd pressure on her shapely behind, and then the cracking of wood all came and went in a subjective split second. She squealed, her arms wrapping tight around Amara's neck as the orcish woman thought on the fly and got them well out of the way of the crashing Faerie behind them. Wood and steel alike splintered behind them as torn metal and broken tree came to a thundering halt on the ground behind them.

Inara was in a daze, perhaps enough to even miss the second squeeze on her behind, and slowly she was rolling out of Amara's arms to crawl a foot or so away, regaining her feet in good time. She was checking herself over as she went -- no new bruises as far as she could tell. She'd be a little sore from both falls, but overall she had come out of everything rather unmarred. Finally, she turned her attention to the orc instead, able to get a good look at her.

She was... not what Inara had expected an orc to look like. They were supposed to look downright monstrous but Amara honestly wouldn't have been bad looking if she was browner or peachier rather than, well, green. Not that Inara had anything against green, per her favorite color, but it definitely made Amara anything but conventional in her appearance.

"I'll say! Thank you so much. I think I'm okay!" Inara said as she patted herself down for her bag, coming up with it a moment later. "Will. Um. This do?" Inara asked as she presented what money she had. It was... well, somewhat meager. A day at an inn and a few hot meals, perhaps, pocket change by anyone's estimate.

Amara reached out and took the bag from the Human, pulling it's strings loose and peered inside. Okay... There was a few rounds worth in there... But, considering she'd just caught the girl from a drop that would have probably crippled her, and then got her out of the way of a falling tree that would have crushed her, she thought it was lacking just a little bit. "I just saved your life. Twice." She said, frowning slightly, as she inhaled slowly, her bust expanding, before she let it all out in a huff. She didn't exactly know what she was going to do with this... She had better pay working as a bouncer, really. Aside from getting free drinks at the bars and inns she'd protected, she also got a warm place to sleep. This? Well, she supposed this was why she wasn't some high-and-mighty hero-type, going around and saving damsels-in-distress. Didn't pay out all that well, now did it? She made a noise in her throat as she thought things over for a moment, considering what to do.

In the end, her face screwed and and she threw up an arm. "Bah! It's not enough, but forget it for now, we'll work something out." She said, half as much to herself as to the Human. "I've got a camp not too far from here, maybe half an hour's walk?" She looked the woman up and down, wondering if she'd slow her down. Amara did keep a decent pace, no matter where she was going, near or far, and she was a fair bit shorter than she was. "Maybe a bit longer." She sighed again and climbed up to her feet, looking down at her for a moment, before offering her a hand to help her up. Just because she wasn't satisfied with the pay, didn't mean that she couldn't at least be nice. She did have a nice ass, after all. Hey... Hmm... A brow rose as an idea began to swirl in her head. She knew she'd be happy if they could work out an arrangement around what she was thinking, but that being said, the hard part would be selling the idea. People, well, some people anyway, weren't all that keen on the idea of giving themselves up in payment. But, the girl di owe Amara her life. Twice.

She looked around for a moment. The brief spurt of action had thrown off her sense of direction for a moment, but once she was oriented again, she pointed back in the direction she'd come. "This way. Town's a few days away from here." It was a lie, it'd have taken half a day if they were taking their time, but if the Human didn't know that, then she didn't need to know it. Not till Amara had her back at camp, and made her 'offer' first. She turned her back and smirked to herself, feeling a swoop of anticipation in the pit of her stomach. It'd been a while since she'd had someone to warm her bedroll, after all.

Inara had something of a panicky look on her face. She wasn't the BEST at reading people, but... well, sometimes you could just tell. "I-it's all I have on me. There were probably some things worth selling on the ship, but--" It was gently smoldering off to the side now, almost perpendicular to the ground. Getting into it would be a massive pain in the ass now. Getting back out would be an even bigger one.

There came a little humming sound not too far away, and a small manabot floated out of the wreckage. It was about nine inches in diameter and about six inches high besides. The bottom of it glowed with a miniature manadrive and a single lens look up its "face". It floated down to hover just over Inara's shoulder. She was relieved to see it was alright, but... "Um. Except him," Inara said. That bot would have been worth a fortune from some people, and a swift shot to the head from others.

Inara did brighten at the prospect of being able to work something out. "Yes, please. I know I can pay you well if I can just get back home," Inara said. She fell into step behind the orcish woman, perfectly fine to let her lead the way for now. Orcs weren't that bad it seemed! After all, Amara had so far been very kind in helping her. What was the worst that could happen?

Amara took the lead, guiding the Human back through the woods. The trees were too close together, and the brush wasn't too thick, so it wasn't exactly a gruelling hike of any kind. Sunlight filtered down through the leaves, and a light breezes made them sway high above, leaving a sound akin to waves upon a shore. There was a good reason that Amara preferred being out here in the wild, compared to living in the cities. Oh, sure, there was more work for an Orc of her history and skills, that was for certain, but she knew from experience that the faster you gained coin, the quicker it was gone. There were always things to spend on, booze, food, women... So many women... Either to pay for their company, or spoil them rotten... She wasn't exactly the best decision maker when she was around someone she was attracted to.

Case in point, the Human behind her. By all rights, she should have pointed her in the right direct and given her a solid slap on the rear to get her going and on her way. Amara should have known that only trouble would come of her taking some lone, vulnerable Human girl back to her camp for illicit reasons. She was sure that there'd be a witchhunt in a matter of days, peasants with pitchforks and city guards or something, looking to take her hide for what she was hoping to get away with. Eh... She glanced over her shoulder at the woman with a raised eyebrow, her gaze roaming up and down her figure. She looked worth it...

It took just about as long as Amara had been expecting for them to arrive back at her camp. Her fire was dead and cold, only ashes surrounded by a few large rocks remaining. She didn't want to come back to a burned down camp, so she'd made sure it put it out before she'd left. She'd have to do something about that before long. She knew that out in the forest like this, it managed to get colder quicker as the day grew on. She glanced around and pointed to her tent. "You can rest there for the moment, I'll see what I've got in the way of food. Water's there." She said pointing to a flask that was hanging from one of the poles of her tent.