NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC: Here's the conference thread from http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=8881002. If you still want to join right now, before posting really gets underway here, you can post there.)

IC:

It was a cool day for Alei Tornis: 25 degrees Celsius. Above the streets were strung ropes, off of which hung the flags of Dorinal, Rittia, Warhaven, Chazadia, and Lethislavania. Bands played traditional music along the streets, and the city of about 100,000 bustled with a vitality surpassing its usual overreaching energy. Cars, camels, and mopeds seemed to slide down the street rather than simply move.

At the airport stood detachments of fifteen soldiers each for all the delegations riding by air. They would form an honor guard, and lead on camelback the representatives through the streets to the Grand Tinmari Hotel.

The Fow in charge of the first greetings was Korof-Brigadier Jitash, son of Rewin. He was the commander of the Alei Tornis Brigade. He was dressed in the typical uniform: Brown combat boots, khacki slacks with cargo pockets, an olive-drab-almost-khacki shirt with a brown tie, a brown belt, and a tilley hat. Once at the hotel, the guests would be greeted by Ju-Korof Endistar himself. He adjusted the tie on his uniform, and waited.

(OOC: Rittia, how do you want to RP out the arrival of Geissler? Do you want to RP it out in tandem with him at the conference, skip over it, or what?)

The gold, red and black helicopter slowly set down at the Tornis Airport. Inside sat the middle-aged, bearded Duke Williams III, regaled in the traditional heavy gold and black robe of the Grand Duke and wearing the tall crown that had been passed down his family for three generation. Surrounding him were ten members of the Chazadian royal militia, outfitted in desert camouflage. As the helicopter neared the ground the sliding doors on either side of the copter opened and the militiamen hopped out and surrounded the aircraft. When the vehicle was safely on the ground and the rotors completely stopped, the Duke finally emerged and made his way to the Dorinal honor guard. When they told him he would be traveling to the hotel by camel he was quite shocked. Somewhat awkwardly, he climbed up onto one of the beasts and tried to enjoy the odd music and exotic sights on the way to the Grand Tinmari Hotel.

Jitash smiled and greeted the Grand Duke. The honor guard rode out on their camels, with eleven camels in tow. They proceeded through the streets to cheering crowds, and when they got to the hotel, the delegation was dropped off. The leader of the unit blew into his horn to signify to the people around to get out of their way, and quickly road off with his troops back to their headquarters.

Endistar and two Korofs walked up to the Grand Duke. "Greetings. My people are pleased to host you." he said. He offered a ceremonial sword to the Grand Duke.

He beckoned. "Come with me. I will show you to your room. Revan and Irhal here will show your bodyguard to their rooms, unless you want them to accompany you."

He led him into the elevator, and pressed the button for the top floor. He went to a room, unlocked the door with a key. He handed it to the Grand Duke, and led him in. The room was very luxurious, if a little decayed from the history of its location.

"On the desk is a agenda for the conference. It begins at dusk. There is a bath behind that door. The television is in the cabinet, there is only one station, so you do not have to bother yourself with changing it. This hotel is the finest in the city, and it is an honor to my people that it is here. If you'll excuse me, I must return to greeting. The next delegation should be arriving shortly."

Way up in the sky, a massive portal opened, and out of it flew the largest Snake anyone could have possibly layed their eyes on ever. It was a rich and vibrantly colored snake, with two sets of wings, one blue, one black. It was approximatly 15 ft in diameter, and at last measurement, 210 Ft long. At chest level, it had a pair of arms, with a Blade-like talon on the end of each arm. Flying around this snake were about 20 smaller snake creatures, each one with a pair of wings. Finally, trailing them, was a man riding a winged unicorn, an Alicorn. The group landed at the airport, and the snakes glowed brightly for a minute, and standing next to the man on the horse, was a beautiful women, with rainbow hair, scaled skin, and a black dress, and high-heeled shoes. long nails extended from her hands. The man on the Alicorn had the horse trot beside the Queen as she walked up to the group. Closer up, it was obvious that the man was wearing plate-mail, and had a longsword strapped to his side.

"Greetings, I am the Queen Sliver of Warhaven, and this man is my escort, Rahegalhoff, Leader of the Fist of Warfare." The queen SLiver said.
Rahegalhoff merely bowed as best he could.

Jitash was shocked by this, and as the snake flew down, he considered taking out his pistol, but he luckily decided against it. He silently said a prayer for calmness, and went to greet the Queen. The Honor Guard rode out, and took on the Queen and Rahegalhoff. They rode through the streets.

Once at the hotel, Endistar and the Korofs presented the Queen with another ceremonial sword, and walked her up to her room.

"This is a fine hotel, and I hope you'll enjoy your stay. The agenda is on the desk. The workers at this inn are at your, as well as all the other delegations, pleasure. I must go, but I will see you again at dusk. As indicated on the agenda, we'll be sending by a car to pick you up just before dusk and take you to the assembly tent."

The queen simply nodded.

"Is there a quality stable for my Alicorn friend? One where they won't attempt to harm my Alicorn?" Rahegal asked, speaking for the first time. He spoke with a thick Irish accent.

"Certainly. I'll radio into the city's defense command, and they'll dispatch a unit of police or Fows to take the Alicorn to their camel stable and guard him. I'll give them explicit orders to give him the best care. I've never encountered such a creature before, it is likely no Dorinalon has. Are there any special provisions that must be made to take care of one?"

"Starfire is fond of Hay, and needs more water than a Camel, a little more than a regular horse. Alicorns, like Starfire, are a breed of Unicorn that have wings. All unicorns are magical in nature, but their powers are limited to moving fast, and hiding. No Alicorn trusts anybody at first, but, they also have the ability to discern a trustworthy person from someone not trustworthy. I got Starfire as a gift from my God, Warfare, because I have so much favor with him." Rahegalhoff said.


OOC: as you can see, I am Magitech, as well as FT.

The 3:00 train from Hujozi pulled into Tornis Central. Out of the first class car stepped Councilor Javier Geissler, the Rittian representative at the Alei Tornis Conference. He is a little bit tall but a little bit overweight. He wears a dark grey suit with a conservative maroon tie, and carries his own luggage. He has features typical of an Atlantieopian, and these have slowed his progress into his current position on the Rittian Council. He has greying hair and travels alone save for his assistant, a small, beetle-like man in a rumpled blue suit with his tie loosened and his collar unbuttoned.
The assistant speaks. "Where on earth can we get a limo in this godforsaken-"

Geissler cuts him off with a sharp wave of his hand. The assistant's unbridled tongue has again embarrassed his master. Geissler has long been considering firing the assistant, but he fears a discrimination lawsuit as the assistant is ethnically Rittian and a "Lantie" firing a Rittian would endanger his political position. "Lantie." How he hated that word. A slur for the peoples of Atlantieopia, it had practically been Geissler's name during his campaign for the Council.

Here, however, nobody cared about the ethnic tensions in Rittia, and the natives would probably have trouble telling the difference between a Rittian and an Atlantieopian. In fact, few in Rittia could. The two ethnicities were so closely related that most people in the nation were ethnically ambiguous. However, jobs were still hard to find for anyone who appeared "Lantie".

Geissler looked for a cab. He hoped he could communicate with the driver enough to get to the Conference.

Endistar radioed in. "Alright, I've given them the proper instructions. In about five minutes, a group of police will be here. It was nice meeting you, your majesty, as well as you and your Alicorn."

-----------

A woman pulled up on camelback, and jumped off. "I am Korof Wirn, daughter of Yirav. There isn't enough space on the loading dock here for an honor guard, but there is one outside for you. As for your assistant, he is partially correct. It seems our land was forsaken by God for many years, but we seem to be on something of a rebound. God willing, pun intended. Also, there are no limousines here. They take up too much space from camels on the roads and they are useless outside of the cities. Here, hop on with me. I have been honored with the duty to take you to the hotel."

She hopped back on, and kept the camel lying down for them.

Duke Williams III moved to sit at the desk in his temporary quarters in Tornis as his Royal Militiamen moved to secure the room.
"Go enjoy yourselfs in town, gentleman," the duke said to his bodyguards. "This building is safe enough, I'll be fine."
The militamen each thanked him in turn, bowed and left their monarch alone to study the agenda for the conferance.

Deeply graceful, the brand-new Iluvauromeni vessel floated down through the atmosphere, using its own momentum to slow itself on its entirely vertical course, ignoring the coriolis effect and atmospheric influences equally.

The ship is almost entirely black, save the pale blue-white-and-silver Three Star Sigil shining on its underbelly. The vessel glows faintly, the light marginally within the blue area of the spectrum, although amongst the blue of the sky, and at altitude, the ship is a mere smudge.

Falling at a rate fast enough to ensure rapidity, but slow enough to prevent sonic booms - although the ship had been flying at hypersonic prior to its fall from the stratosphere - from causing damage down at ground level.

The ship does not roar, or growl, or purr, but hums quietly as it falls to a height of one thousand five hundred metres above sea level, halting and hanging in the air. It does not twitch or move in the wind as older Iluvauromeni vessels do, instead simply...

Stopped, mid-air.

The vessel is sleekly curved to a conical nose, with a wide, blunt rear end. Faint lines criss-cross its hull; fifteen small round depressions marr its hull, but there are no protrusions or evidence of sensory equipment on the ship itself. In a holding pattern around the ship, however, are a team of small sensor drones.

It is not, however, a warship. Or, at least, it's perhaps obvious that it is not a thoroughbred warship; but it is, if one cares for such things, very pretty.

A small vessel falls from the ship without any visible hangar doors opening to allow the vessel to exit; it simply isn't there one moment, and is the next, moving away at pace from a point smackbang against the hull of the Iluvauromeni ship.

Marked on the side of the ship in both the Nenya and Greek alphabets (in Nenya Common and English respectively) is the name IDSS Shining Path of Honour.

The vessel falling bears the very original name SPoH Flitter-Alpha-Five, which is...creative.

The vessel falls towards the airport, correcting course and coming in for an expert... vertical landing, even though the aim was horizontal. The craft settles, then taxis as ordered to its berth, eventually coming to rest and hermetically sealing to the ground. Finally, the soft thrum coming from the flitter ceases...

OOC: Flying snakes, magic portals, Alicorns, and flying ships... oy.

IC: This had already been quite an interesting day for Jitash. Just when he thought the craziness was done, a gigantic object appeared in the sky. Once again, he instinctively began to reach for his pistol, but he held himself back, remembering the previous arrival.

He reminded himself of the passage in the sacred writings about how weird the omens of good things are, and readied himself to greet whoever came out.

He greated the Ma-Tek delegation, and sent them on their way with the honor guard to the hotel.

The ICEL delegation - all wearing the crisply smart white uniform (with a grey stripe at the hip) of the Commonality Diplomatic Corps - are quietly pleasant, polite, but more interested in looking and listening than talking. Two of the four in the delegation are Human; one looks sortof Human, but taller, more slender and compactly muscled. He also walks nigh-on silently, being very light on his feet; and he has unusually bright eyes, amber in colour, and deeply expressive. The remaining member of the group is somewhat furrier than a Human, with features vaguely reminiscent of a feline; he also walks without shoes, and what is visible of him is covered with soft, downy dark orange-brown fur.

Two of the delegates are women; two are male.

Except, really, one of the delegates wasn't technically a woman at all.

She smiled to herself at that thought, but knew that nobody would be any the wise. Oh, it wasn't that she was a man dressed as a woman, or a squid thing in disguise; simply that she was...

More artificial than most. And heading the delegation, too.

An unusual choice; even Sarah thought so; but it made a certain amount of sense. The Nenyar were already possessing a strong image of arrogance; the Humans in the Commonality were not known much of widely outside: Sarah had heard that some even believed that the Commonality was entirely composed of Elves and Nenyar.

This wasn't so, of course.

But it would do well to reinforce the truth of the situation; Sarah would appear as a Human, and in doing so, would save the difficulty of finding a Human with any significant diplomatic experience. Iluvauromeni Humans did not often make good diplomats, being somewhat prone to a desire for warfare and the spilling of blood; the tight but relaxed social structure of the Commonality nurtured that aggression into other avenues, of course, but...

Still. They did not make very good diplomats...certainly not leading diplomats. Not yet.

Sarah paid close attention to her surroundings without really paying attention at all, well aware that she would not forget anything that she saw, if she so chose. She chose to remember.

None of the party were armed; but with an ASI present, there was little need. She was not armed herself; merely physically superior. A good shot to a critical part of the avatar would finish that, she reminded herself; it was difficult not to be overconfident.

And so neither she, nor the others, speak very much. If they do, it is an answer to a question; but they all smile faintly, pleasantly, walking as a single unit; sitting quietly in the transportation (and politely not commenting on anything to their collective distaste).


[OOC: Sarah is a long-standing character of mine; she doesn't fight or do ninja robot stuff, or shoot lasers out of her eyes, really (although she does have a direct link to the ship above). She's capable, but I refuse to use her in that manner. She's an artificial intelligence, designed to act entirely Human; except she doesn't do so as naturally as was intended, because she's fundamentally different.

Anyhow, fear not. She's here for character development purposes rather than silly 'rawr im strong' antics. :)]

Endistar and the two Korofs handed the Ma-Tek delegation their ceremonial swords, and showed them up to their rooms. "I was surprised to hear from a nation as powerful as yours. I have seen pictures of your ship, and I have seen it myself in the sky. Truly, you are great. But you are also good. It is excellent to see a major power taking interest in a small country such as ours without hope of domination. I must greet more guests. The agenda is on your desk, and the conference begins at sundown."