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In search of Trapalanda (Alpha Zero & MMRS)

Flynt arched his brow in response to Lady Padget's instructions to take the native girl instead of the one with the obvious technical knowledge. At the end of the day it really wasn't his call to make, she was paying the bills and as such she got to make the choices.

He shrugged half heartedly "If that's what Mi'lady wishes then I guess that's how its gonna be."
 
"I speak English too," Tuenkaron stated. "Know what trade items to bring for Pemon, what foodstuffs Europeans need. Leave other things to you." Even speaking broken English, the musical tone of Tuenkaron's native tongue came through.

"Well, I will leave you two to it, Mr. Flynt," Lady Paget said as she rose to her feet. Miss Lucille stood up as well. "I shall secure us a doctor from the missionary hospital, and as I said previously, if you have further questions, Lucille will be available to answer them. Otherwise, I look forward to sailing with you in four days time."
 
"I never doubted your ability to speak English," he shot back, his attention shifting towards Tuenkaron, "If anything my assumption was that Lady Paget was knowledge in your native tongue."

He wiped the crumbs from his hands on his pants. He figured the best place to start would be the dock yards, get Luis up and sober and get a few laughs as the old man would no doubt embarass himself trying trying to woo the Pemon girl. He'd be able to get a few minutes of entertainment at the old drunks expense.

"Let's get going than." He said as he started to the door, ready to get this boring side of the job done.
 
Lady Paget watched Mr. Flynt leave the lobby with Tuenkaron, before turning to her assistant.

"Lucille, if you would, contact the hospital in question, and see if you can arrange me an interview with the hospital's director. I'm sure that a proper sized donation should afford me a modicum of good will. Then tell Captain Winston that I'll need to have a chat with him and the lads. We'll have to step lively, Lucille. The four days between now and when we depart is going to go by quickly."

"Of course, Lady Paget," Lucille said with a quick nod of her head before she departed the lobby.
 
The ship Flynt planned on securing for the expedition might have been a moderately respectable leasure vessel once. But years had been unkind to it and in its current condition it looked like it was being held together by noting but rust and will power.

"Luis!" He shouted from the foot of the boarding ramp, trying to draw the attention of the captain. After several moments of inactivity he gave a half hearted shrug, "Well, I guess we have to do this the hard way," he said as much to himself as to Tuenkaron. The old plank creaked under his boots as he accended the plank to the deck and made his way towards the bow.

A chubby man in grease stained coveralls slumped against the railing, an empty bottle of rum held loosely in one hand. Flynt knelt down, plucking the bottle from his hand and then smashed it against the railing jolting the man awake.

He looked up at Flynt, blinking blurry, watery eyes, "Flynt? S' the fire boy?" He slurred before noticing the native girl. He stumbled to his feet trying to wipe the grease stains away from his coveralls, "I apolgize for my current condition." He said, butchering the launguge of the Pemon, "I didn't know Jackie boy would be bringing a lovely representative of the Pemon aboard my humble vessel."

Flynt rolled his eyes.
 
Tuenkaron produced a knife from her European style clothing, the ugly sort that the Pemon valued and traded for, and told Luis in no uncertain terms, and in the colorful description that only a native speaker of Pemon can accomplish, that if Luis attempted to assault her virtue or the virtue of the European women in her charge, Luis would find himself at one end of the river and his testicles at the other.

"English good, Spanish good," Tuenkaron told Jack, "But sometimes Pemon best."
 
Four days later they where ready to depart and Flynt was still laughing at how quickly Luis had wet himself when the Pemon girl had pulled a knife on him and watched the old man fumble and try desperately to apologize before Flynt stepped in and explained that Luis was utterly harmless and simply had a deep admiration for her people.

The sun was just starting to creep over the Horrizon as Flynt scaled the boarding ramp to the ships deck. Cranes worked to load the last few crates of supplies on board but he paid them little mind. Dispite the early morning humidity Flynt wore a heavy canvas duster that trailed down to his heels over a simple hunting vest and shirt, a wide brimmed Stetson perched atop his head creating the image of the typical rugged American adventurer. His duffle bag was flung over one shoulder along with a large double barreled hunting rifle.

There was a heavy clunk as the last crate was dropped onto the deck and the last of the longshoreman scattered down the deck. Luis had been overseeing the unloading process and was standing nearby, looking and smelling far better than he had previously. He gave a nod to Flynt as he joined him, "Any word on when this nobel young lady and her entourage will be arriving?" He asked.

Flynt shrugged, "No idea. But hopefully they won't keep us waiting too long."
 
A small parade arrived shortly to the boat, with Lady Paget in the lead. She was accompanied by the four soldiers her father had assigned for her protection, with each soldier carrying the latest in repeating rifles. In addition, Lady Paget's aide-de-camp, Miss Lucille was by her side, along with the ever watchful and ever belligerent, Tuenkaron. In addition to two porters from the hotel, who were there solely to transport Lady Paget's luggage from the hotel to the boat, there was a young blonde woman, very conservatively dressed, carrying a medical bag and wearing a riding hat that had grown popular among riders in North America.

"Mr. Flynt," Lady Paget called out, quickly moving ahead of her entourage. "I believe you'll be pleased to discover that I've secured for our expedition the services of Dr. Gillian Kildare, from the missionary hospital.

The blond woman gave Flynt a curt nod as she took in the boat the expedition would be traveling in.

Eyeing Luis, Lady Paget asked, "So is this our Captain?"
 
The two men watched the small convoy of people approaching and realizing the amount of baggage being brought carted up the boarding ramp and onto the deck Luis turned to Flynt, "She does realize we're going up river and into the middle of the jungle right?"

Flynt leaned against the railing and brushed back his coat, resting a hand on the grip of the revolver nestled in holster slung low around hips, "I'm going to assume that she does. I mean she is the one financing this whole thing so I'm assuming she know what she doing." He said with a half hearted shrug."

Luis fired a cigarette and narrowed his eyes,"I swear to God, if I get killed out there I am coming back from the dead and kicking your ass."

"Ohhhh, I'm quaking in my boots." He replied, pushing himself away from the railing and greeting his benefactor, "Lady Padget, a pleasure as always." he tipped his hat slightly to the new comer, "Doctor, welcome to our little party of myth chasers. Hopefully we won't bore you."

He glanced towards Luis, "Lady Astoria Padget, Captain Luis Sera, the boat man I told you about a few days ago."

Luis gave a curt nod, "My boat is at your disposal my lady." he said before looking around nervously, clearly checking for Tuenkaron and upon spotting her promptly excused himself to the bridge to start getting prepped to depart.
 
"Don't worry about all the luggage, Mr. Flynt," Lady Paget said with a laugh as one bag after another was loaded on the boat. "A good part of it consists of trinkets and such that I thought might be useful as trade goods with the local. And part of it is the medicines and equipment Doctor Kildare brought along." Lady Paget's brow furrowed as she watched Luis scurry away. "I wonder where our Captain is headed off to in such a hurry?"

Tuenkaron, who had moved up behind Lady Paget, said nothing but just smiled.

"After we get settled in...and I assume we four ladies will be sharing a cabin together," Lady Paget added..."There's a village approximately a day short of the falls I thought we might make a step at. There are some odd rumors that Tuenkaron has shared with, about a possible outpost of Trapalanda. Well, I think it might be an outpost. I'm not quite sure. The stories are somewhat muddled and I think Tuenkaron found one or two...well, rather unsavory," Lady Paget added, with a slight blush coming to her cheeks.
 
Flynt watched Luis scurry away out of the corner of his eye and smirked to himself. For all his big talk of wanting to run off an join the Pemon he had been scared to death by one Pemon girl with a knife and a bad attitude. He found the whole thing far more entertaining then he probably should.


"Luis needs to get the engines fired up as to the sleeping arrangements..." He pushed his hat back abit and scratched his head, "there are only actually four cabins for passengers so each of you ladies will be getting a room to yourselves. Luis made sure enough space was cleared towards the back of the cargo hold for your bodyguards and myself. I hope the soliders don't mind roughing it."

He couldn't help but notice the flush of colour to the lady's face when she mentioned the so called unsavory rumors, uh the sheltered life of the British nobility, there was a charm to it that he couldn't deny was endearing. He glanced towards Tuenkaron, "so other than being unsavory and potentially too obscene for our dear Lady Paget, what kind of rumours are we talking about?"
 
"Lady Paget good woman," Tuenkaron said, producing her knife and emphasizing her words with it. "Virgin like me. Want good man. But soft man." Tuenkaron became reflective for a moment, adding "Man who is like ironwood in battle, wool in love. Pemon man must prove himself such, before Pemon maiden accept him."

"Yes, well, I'm sure Mr. Flynt find all that fascinating," Lady Paget interrupted, now almost glowing crimson, "But perhaps you should tell him what you know of the village's legend."

"Long time, long time before Europeans come," Tuenkaron began, Wanderers not only have City, they have other places. Some were not good. Soft in battle, hard in love. Some come to Pemon like this, taking men and women. But Pemon fight back. One Wanderer help. Strange, but like good man. Sunrise in mind, ironwood in battle, wool in love. Tunataukinang, village before the Great Falls, old carvings there. Few go. Some say that the spirit of sunrise still dwells there." Tuenkaron shrugged. "Sometimes I think that when people say spirits, it is just fear of shadows and darkness."
 
Flynt rolled his eyes, rather unimpressed by Tuenkaron and what seemed to be her love for waving her knife around. While he found it more than just a little funny how she had managed to fill harmless old Luis with enough fear to make him shit himself and run off at the mere sight of her, Flynt himself wasn't finding her to be particularly terrifying.

He felt a certain amount of relief when Lady Paget, red faced and flustered by the discussion about Pemon mating practices, cut the other girl off. Though he was now fairly certain that the old man would never be able to land himself one of the native girls as a bride as much as he may want, "So what you're saying is that the people of Trapalanda attacked the Pemon and that some great mythical warrior who was.....Sunrise in Mind and Ironwood in Battle," he chose to leave off the part about being like wool in love, whatever the hell that meant, "sided with the Pemon and now his ghost or something his hanging around the falls?"

He pushed back the brim of his hat with one thumb, "Well, humans may be afraid of the dark, but there's always a shred of truth somewhere in legends."
 
"It is rather interesting," Lady Paget said, still somewhat flushed, "That the Pemon don't use their normal word for Wool in this saying. The word they use in this instance sounds very similar to the word Andean tribes use to describe the fur of the Chinchilla. One would want to attributed this to mere coincidence, since the Pemln have no inherent knowledge of the Chinchilla, but..." Lady Paget shrugged.

"Have touched Chinchilla fur once," Tuonkaron added. "Very soft."
 
"Ok....that's....yeah that's on the sex lives of Pemon for now," Flynt said, waving his hands dismissively in front of his face. He had really heard enough of the tribes mating rituals for one day, he was in this for the fortune and glory, well at least that was his primary motivation. If something was to happen with one of the lovely ladies on the expidation he wouldn't complain but there where bigger things at stake.

Another man, smartly dressed in the tan uniforms that Lady Padget's troops wore. He was a stark contrast to Flynt, his clothes neatly pressed and showing not even a spot of dirt, his boots immaculately polished, his dark hair neatly kept as was the mustache on his upper lip. He snapped to attention, saluting her sharply, "Ma'am, the boy have settled in below deck and have finished stowing the supplies. We're ready to depart."

He cast an eye towards Flynt and scowled, "I suppose this is the guide you hired? With all due respect ma'am it looks like the only thing he can guide someone to is the bottom of a bottle."

Flynt glanced towards Tuonkaron and rolled his eyes in response to the man's insults before mouthing the world 'asshole' in response.
 
Tuonkaron's scowl might have briefly...briefly...given way to a smirk, before returning to a scowl.

"Easy way to tell who better to guide," Tuonkaron said definitively. Both her hands moved quickly to the knife sheaths on her hips and to the naked eyes, they moved so fast that it appeared she pulled both knives and threw them, one at Flynt, the other at Lady Paget's lead guard.
 
The knives prompted to different responses from the two men.

The Captain, Wilson, moved quickly, smoothly, side stepping the threat that he saw comming. The movement was almost casual. Performed with the kind of effort that someone might put into swatting a fly or other annoyance.

Flynt didn't do anything quite so impressive. Instead of trying to avoid it he slumped backwards against the railing, unable to do much else he snatched his hat from his head and shoved it out in front of his body at an arms length with both hands and squeezed his eyea shut waiting for the impact.
 
"And what was that supposed to prove?" Lady Paget asked of her native guide with an exasperated tone to her query.

Tuonkaron shrugged, then looked out at the boat. "Everything loaded. We go now?" she asked of no one in particular.
 
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