Gathering of Raiders (Raid into Connelaoth) [Open]

[akallas]

It was just outside the City of Arca that Akallas von Aerok awaited with his ship waiting to take off.

To do what?

Raiding.

He didn't remember exactly when he had decided to do this. He believed that it was one of those conscious thoughts that took hold and he decided to go with it. It had a lot to do with lacking funds, research subjects, and boredom. Mostly research subjects.

So in light of his revelation leading him to decide to raid Connelaoth's southern border, he had posted "Hiring" ads all over guilds and taverns, calling forth all of the scums, mercenaries, and opportunists for this occasion. The ads also held where they were to meet, which was outside Arca's southern gate.

From Arca alone, he had gathered a hundred or so men. Half of them were mercenaries and other half were ruffians. A third of them lacked good armor and weapons while mercenaries generally had decent weapons but poor armor with them.

Thankfully, he had his DANs with him (Refer to Pallax Grimoire in Jounrals). Hopefully, they will make up for anything those poorly armed and armored ruffians can't do.

...

It wouldn't bother Akallas if he accidentally ordered some of the more nasty pieces of those ruffians to be Core-Dust Converted to Dust. But it was only a possibility.

[ScalesNDbook]

Valona arrived in Arca at nightfall. The city reeked,  the streets were full with drunken mercenaries and other scum. Valona had tasted a wide variety of blood types, and considered herself a blood connoisseur. Mercenaries blood tasted like a bland grue.l

One particularly  unlucky pickpocket was strolling throe a back alley , presumably searcing for his next victim. Valona sneaked behind him and then used water magic. Watery tentacles erupted from the ground below the man, constricting him and covered his mouth. Valona search him for anyting that can be considered valuable. She only found one copper coin and a piece of paper. An ad.
- You are not particularly good at your job , are you?- she whispered in his ears , before  biting him on the neck.

[Wave]

Ray had been in the city for a few days already. Another job  had brought him here, and he'd been trying to find another.

By sheer luck he overheard a group of what seemed like thugs talk about the ad they were reading.
He couldn't quite understand everything they said, but enough to know where he was supposed to be going.

Ray decided to try his luck and just went to the south gate, seeing if he could learn more about what he was about to get himself in to.

[akallas]

Akallas waited some more and watched as mercenaries and ruffians crawled out of the city by individuals and groups towards him. Already, there was a hundred of them lounging just outside his aircraft's entrance.

He interviewed the raider-wannabes as they came to him. He asked them simple questions like "Have you killed before? Do you have issue with odd magic? Gold dust will be primary payment method, so do you have issues with it?"

Of course, he turned away adventurers and raider-wannabes who seem to be more trouble than they are worth.

...

Then he saw a mercenary in purple and face mask along with a few more in front and behind the man. Woman? Couldn't tell from where he was sitting. But the armor looked well forged, if anything.

[ScalesNDbook]

When Valona headed to the southern gate the area was already full with thugs.
She sensed strong magic coming from the ship, and decided that she wants to talk with the owner.
Valona was wearing her old hunting cloak- made from a high quality green fabric covered with blood stains. Her head was cover with a hood reviling only her eyes and a Small strain of blond hair.
Some of the  blood on her cloak was from a fear demon, and it have the wonderfull property to make humans and animals feel dizziness and anxiety when the go to close to her. That make the cloak usless in hunting, but incredibly useful when surrounded by scumbags.

[Wave]

Ray had already considered just leaving. There were far too many people in one place, but his curiosity was bigger.

When it was his turn, he started to answer some questions he has already picked up without being questiones first.
"I have killed enough to stop counting, any payment is fine and most would already consider the magic I practice odd. Anything else?"

[akallas]

He looked at the man before him before him. If he had eyes, he would have blinked. Someone was eager. "No. You can go wait by the Finicky Angelfish. Next," he said.

The ruffians, thugs, and mercenaries that came after the purple armored man were boring. Some even tried to muscle their way through.

On the other hand, another participant had caught his sight. It was a woman. The bloody state of her cloak, hood, and everything just screamed predator. Or a stalker. Probably the former rather than the latter.

She looked like a predator and the ruffians around her knew it. They backed away from her like weak beta's before a strong alpha.

It was odd though. Despite possessing the exterior of a predator, his spell [Emotion Skim] didn't detect anything hostile from her.

But [Emotion Skim] did get inputs from everyone else. Fear was immediately "seen" by the spell, and the said emotion was at its strongest from those around the woman. They immediately backed off from her.

She was also headed straight for him.

If he still had a body, he would have felt the same fear as the rest of the thugs, ruffians, and mercenaries she gathered. Fortunately for him, he had no body, and thus no fear to be triggered by whatever she was doing.

'Was it her doing, though?' the scientist within him asked. 'It could be the cloak she is wearing. Or the blood. Interesting.'

When it was her turn for the questioning, he asked the same questions.

[ScalesNDbook]

Valona lowered her hood. When she worked as healer , she often lower her hood when she meet new employers.
" Yes I have killed and used magic " - Valona answered with a calm voice. " And I Want to know more about the strange magic.  I sensed intersting magic in this ship, and   I'm very curious, .Gold is a fine payment."
Valona locked at the stranger and  sniffed the air, trying to detect what kind of creature is he.

[Wave]

Ray moved out of the way as told. He was glad he could finally get out of the crowd and could now actually pay attention to his surroundings.
The ship was too big for him to see completely, but it definitely looked like this could be interrelating. Especially because of the odd magic that was mentioned. Not having just another mundane job was an appreciated change.

[akallas]

Akallas lifted the bronze kettle hat that had been covering his "face." As he lifted it up, he showed her what he was.

A collection of armor sets controlled by a magic-consciousness.

"You are the first to desire to know my magic out of curiosity out of the people here," he said to her. "My magic allows me to turn objects into what I call Dust. They look like a reddish gold version of regular gold dust. I am capable of manipulating this Dust in many ways. The ship behind you is one such product as are my DANs."

As if on que, the ship's rear cargo bay dropped down. From it, a single 2.5 meter robust-looking golem (refer to Pallux Grimoire) came out. Its body and "limbs" were all connected by the same mist of Dust magic.

"Don't be alarmed, boys and girls! That's just my personal heavy lifting muscle. Or metal. Whatever you want to call it." He turned to Valona. "I suppose we can talk more about my odd magic later if you wish, but for now ... next."

He then whistled to DAN, which looked at him once before looking over to a pile of crates behind the ship.

For Akallas, allowing DAN to be seen like this was an act he needed to put up for the sake of himself. He shuddered at the thought of the stupidity some of these ruffians might perform if they met DAN onboard the ship without knowing about it.

[akallas]

(Since it doesn't look like anyone else is going to join, we'll just move to raid Connlaoth after a few more posts here).

Akallas snapped his notebook close as the last of the ruffians signed up. He also saw that his DANs had finished working on loading all of their supplies.

"Alright, people!" he exclaimed as clapped his hands once. "We're all now ready to go, so I'll be explaining to you how this is going to happen! Once we're up in the air, I ask you to refrain from using magic unless you are within your room or under emergency. Alcohol is forbidden from ever being aboard my ship. If you are caught with it, I'm throwing you out of my ship, wherever we may be. If we're up in air, good luck, because I'm throwing you out anyway."

"You will also be provided food and water during your participation of my raids. Any questions so far?"

[Wave]

Ray had turned his attention to the golem. It really did seem like this could be rather interesting.
He tried to figure out how it worked, but was too far away to see all details and didn't want to risk interrupting it's work.

He didn't have a problem with what Akallas told them all, but had to wonder why he specifically ask not to use magic. He didn't bother asking, guessing he'd find out once he was on the ship.

[akallas]

Taking the quietness and a few stray "nays" here and there as his answer, Akallas nodded and ordered everyone to get on the ship. "There are twenty living quarters in my ship, so that's five of you to each one. It's big enough, so don't complain."

If some of them killed each other, he wouldn't mind. Most of these ruffians were human, and in their 20's and 30's. Assuming about twenty of them die due to whatever reason, that's ...  300 grams of gold, or about 15 gold suns. 15 gold suns for some dead people. He definitely didn't mind if they killed each other.

With that said, he herded them in through the cargo doors.

http://www.spiritsoftheearth.net/smf/index.php?topic=20374 (if you don't want to reply anymore. The raid has begun!)