Posted by Gamemaster CockRoach (GM) in Main Sim - Alien Planet - Landing Party 2 Inside Valiki
[snip]

The guard eyed each person in turn before stopping on Mthunzi who was much taller then anyone else about. “..Quite a big man you got there, quite tall indeed. He some kind of filthy Caliban freak? Sure has the height for it!” The guard said coming up to Mthunzi and poking him in the chest, even though the guard himself was bulky he was a bit smaller than Mthunzi at only 6‘2 compared to his 7‘2. “..How about it boy you some freak caliban only fit for licking my boots and living in the sewers?” he chided. The rest of the guards nearby murmured and seemed to find this amusing.

GM CockRoach

The slight tightness around his eyes would show Rand and only Rand how irritated Roman was with guard’s conduct, but none of that would show on his icy exterior. “Wherever he may be from, he’s mighty handy in a scuffle,” Roman commented, keeping his voice calm. He had no idea what a ‘caliban’ was, and it sounded as though they were not well regarded, but Roman had no other handy explanations so he attempted not to agree or disagree.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

The burly guard glanced at Alden, then spat in the grass between both men before returning to his gate, “..Bah damn outlanders and their Caliban loving ways..” he was heard to mutter, “..fine whatever! Get inside, but be warned we’re going to have our eyes on you all, any stepping out of line or causing problems with your freak there is going to have your next steps be with a noose around your necks!” he said waving them through.

GM CockRoach

With a tiny sigh of relief and a quick glance at the rest of the team, Roman stepped through and led the others into the village. “You’ll have no trouble from us,” he said to the guard as he passed. He figured Mthunzi could expect more unsavory comments like the guard’s, they’d just have to deal with it, see if there was anything useful here and then get the heck out.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Kovan had crossed his arms, taking a nonchalant if closed stance while XO Alden talked with the guard. But as the guards began to insult Mthunzi he clenched his fingers tight around his arms. To stop himself from doing something stupid and reckless. Kovan trembled with the effort of holding himself back. He wasn’t just some wanderer on his own anymore. Now he was apart of a team. Kovan turned away, and distracted himself by mentally reviewing all the away team protocol he memorized at the Academy. Then they were cleared to go and Kovan moved with the rest of the group into town.

Ensign ch’Sirhc

Rand didn’t like the way the guard approached Nkoseny and she quietly held her breath; she had been worried the guard might react because Nkoseny did not, but the guard let them through. It just reminded her to keep the hood of her cloak up around her hair. The guards at Krezek had said that red hair would be noticed because it was rare, but there is no way to tell if it was also taboo at this point.

OOC: Moving this ahead and retitling for the location change

Once the group got moving again they passed through the 12ish foot high gates, they soon were obviously entering some kind of lower end merchant and warehouse storage quarter of the large village. The smell of horses, ox, and the like were evident coming from a nearby stall area to their right up ahead, to the left ahead they saw a small row of three shops with non-worded signs with simple pictures outlining likely their wares. One seemed related to animal care or the like, another for farming equipment and such, and the third seemed related to possibly smoked food and drinks. Further ahead the cobble stone path split in different directions to different warehouses all housing some form of long term goods or trade items no doubt. Many men and women of the local human stock were hard at work in this area and though some gave them a glance here and there mostly either ignored them, seemed disinterested, or the like towards their entry into their village.

At the end of the cobblestone walk they found a series of wooden signs on a pole giving some directional layouts to the village. Just north of them seemed a higher end merchant/noble quarter, just west immediately seemed the more common merchant and lower end residential quarter, further west from there seemed to be the more slum dwelling quarter, to their north-west led directly to what seemed a hilled area of the village upon which even from here sat a semi-small fortress like stone building which seemed home to the local militia and ruling body members in their quarter, north-west and west from that quarter seemed a more middle class general residentials quarter. Lastly further north from the government and general residential quarter was the village docks quarter which boarded the massive lake in this region and seemed a staple for local fishing and such efforts.

GM CockRoach

Rand looked around. “We aren’t dressed well enough to venture that way,” she pointed toward the higher end merchant/noble quarter. “Not unless we have really good reason. Historically they tend to stand on a lot of ceremony so unless we know the social protocol, we would draw a lot of attention.” She glanced down the other paths and pointed toward the slum like area and warehouses. “Easy to hid things there, people don’t ask a lot of questions and less likely to answer, unless you have enough money to make it worth it, or something of similar value. We might do best to head that way,” Rand nodded toward the more common merchant area, “Find a tavern and start seeing what we can learn.” She didn’t think the fortress was a good place to head towards at all. Just a gut feeling. She didn’t want to run into more guards like the ones at the gate.

Yeoman Rand