[Featured characters: Aila, Alanis, Borus, Jacques, Lilly, Mel, Thomas, Viki] Marooned Ship: Goro's Bath House This room is a cramped shadow of what it used to be- now functioning as the Reception area while two doorways lined with more curtains that have a red spot in the center. These lead to the male and female baths respectively. There's a cot folded up against the wall, as well as a desk aligned right next to the entryway. ===== Swish...shwoo. Swish...shwoo. The waters of the bath flow pleasantl y, cleansing the occupants of their filth and, often, worries, and steam wafts from the surface to the ceiling, a mist that veils those present. A replenishing scent, redolent of orange blossoms and ginger, is heavily laden in the vapors, yet is not too cloying as to be overbearing. All is peace, all is pleasant, and everything is perfect...that is, until a scratching echoes throughout the chamber. It soars above the squishing of sponges and chitter of conversation, its raucous call tearing the tranquility in two. Those who are close might observe that it is none other than Aila who the noise stems from, her hands busily pawing at the wall, scraping away miniscule splinters of stone. There, she has discovered, is a hole, and what sensible Karayan doesn't want to investigate a hole? It's so fascinating! However, it hasn't yet occurred to her that the wall she now tears away at is all that divides the men's baths from the women's, nor does it come to mind that if she can see in, so too can they. But that's all right! Now, where'd that knife get off to? Curses! It was with the rest of her clothing. Alanis watches the Karayan girl idly, covered to the neck in sweet, refreshing water. The bath is really very nice, when one decides to take a dip /voluntarily/, but she isn't quite used to the idea of bathing with other people. She has scrunched herself up in the far corner by the wall, her hair limp and loose, and falling over her face. It's hard to tell what Aila is doing over there, and she's debating whether or not she should start up a conversation. Worrying over that is kind of ridiculous though, so she pushes a mass of hair from her face and asks timidly, "What are you doing?" Sitting in one of corner of the men's bath is Borus. Between the warm water, tranquil steam, and soft smell of some sort of flower he can't remember the name of, its very relaxing. Although most of him is submerged, from what one can see, he is quite a well built man. At this moment, his eyes are closed, and he is either asleep or trying to ignore the others in the bath with him. After a long day of hunting, it was nice to find some way to relax, and the bath was the perfect spot. Jacques slips in, sinking into the refreshing warm water, and relaxes, letting out a small, content sigh. He opens one eye, glancing over at Borus. /Hey, it's that knight./ Jacques pauses for a moment. /That knight that liked to glare a lot./ He closes his eye wordlessly, sinking deeper into the water, ignoring the faintest of chatter that can be heard from the other side. It had nothing to do with him whatsoever. After a minute, he opens his eyes again, clearly bored with just sitting and attempting to sleep. Lazily, he sits up a bit, and flicks some water at the wall. Wrapped in a towel, Lilly gently submerges herself into the water. "Aah~!" She closes her eyes and her cheeks gently flush. /This water is just divine! I must remember to commend Goro on his wonderful bath skills!/ Unfortunately, this moment of calm and piece is broken by some chatter and splashing, as Aila continues to pry at the wall. Lilly's eyes shoot open, glaring at the girls. She removes one arm from the water and points her finger at the girls, alternating between the two of them. "Excuse me! I am /trying/ to relax here! What exactly are you up to? Do you know who /I/ am?" Thomas sits in the bath, a deep breath coming from him as he relaxes. It'd have been nice to strike up a conversation or something to make things less tense on poor Thomas- but quite frankly, that knight intimidates him. All of the big, burly types intimidate him. It wasn't hard to imagine one of the knights taking a hammer and pounding him into the ground until he was completely buried. Though he knows the knights wouldn't do that, the possibility that one of them might throw their weight around still just kind of unnerved him. "Um...," he finally says, breaking the silence. "...so...how's your...um...training regimen been going?" You can't fault Thomas for trying. As Jacques comes in, he relaxes a bit. Jacques he's talked to, before- so he can be a bit less nervous. "Did you come back from...um...hunting?" he asks, that brief moment of stuttering. It isn't Thomas' day. You'd think they'd make dresses easier to get out of. At least as easy as they were to get into. All she wanted to do was sink into the bath and rest her sore feet! But, as Viki struggles to get out of her dress, she begins to wonder briefly if she was forever doomed to take baths in her dress. She stops struggling, shrugs, then settles down at the egde of the bath to dip her feet in, bunching her skirt up around her thighs. Oooh that felt so good~! She sighs happily and gives everyone in the room a goofy little smile. She was so relaxed~! Hmmm? What was that girl doing, scarcthing at the wall like that. "Umm, excuse me, do you need help?" The Karaya clan is not composed of the most uptight of people, thus it is that Aila suffers little to no discomfort from being in a bath that is occupied by other people. After all, Karaya wasn't exactly filled with private baths. No, when people got dirty, they either lived with the stench, or they trooped down to ye olde bathing pond and washed each other's backs. They were a team! A tightly functioning, perfectly decent, modest team. Aila pulls her thoughts out of her memories, and she returns to the hole, which is crumbling by the second. Then, to Alanis, she replies, "There's a hole." That, of course, is supposed to explain everything. "Want to help examine it?" She turns a smoldering glare to Lilly, wondering just -why- in the world she was being pointed at. Did she have soap on her nose? Sighing, she again explains, "It's a hole, and if you were any decent sort of person, you'd be intrigued by it." Another presence! Just after Aila speaks, she notices Viki, and she literally jumps. No! Please, no help! But...maybe. "Do you think you could teleport some of the wall away? Just a little...a very, very little..." Wait. Did she really just ask that? Maybe now would be a proper time to swim away. "Ahhhhh, maybe that wouldn't be a good idea!" Alanis hastens to cut in before Viki can say anything. "Really, we're fine over here, we don't require any teleportation..." How can she suggest such a thing? Everyone /knows/ what having Viki in the bath means, right? Right? Or maybe she's just jumpy after the last incident. Alanis sloshes over to Aila and peers at the hole she's chipping at. She'd thought Aila would have a little more sense than that! But, wait... "Um, Aila... doesn't this lead to the boy's bath?" Her cheeks turn slightly red, and she glances at Lilly and Viki, then back to the wall, and gives Aila a meaningful look. "I think teleporting would be a bad idea..." A noise, similiar to the sound the rats of Brass Castle make, catches Borus's attention. His eyes open just a tad to notice the others in the bath--the blonde man and the castle master. It takes him a moment to realize that the latter had just addressed him, and he responds in the most succinct fashion: "Fine." It is debatable whether or not the art of conversation was lost on Borus or whether he's just uncomfortable sharing a bath with a boy and a man he doesn't know. Regardless, he speaks again to Thomas. "You've got rats." "..." He stops with the flicking of the water, and turns his head towards Thomas. "...mn." Jacques gives the castle master a small nod, the hint of a smile on his face. "... it was okay. I only caught one rabbit." He then tilts his head at Borus in wonderment, before adding quietly, "... I can catch the rats... if you want." He looks down, as if he had said too much, flicking water at the wall again. "It's not going to bite you, though," Jacques finally adds, not even looking at Borus. Pulling herself onto the ledge around the bath, Lilly crosses her legs and examines the situation. /A hole. All this fuss about a HOLE?/ She shakes her head, looking at the girls. "Look, everyone. I came here to relax. Not talk about a hole in the wall. I mean, really. Do you girls always do things like this in the bath? A /public/ bath, in a building that doesn't belong to you? I mean, what would Goro think! What would Thomas think! Vandalizing private property! Have you /no/ class at all?" And as a second thought.. "Is there anyone on the other side? This is scandalous!" The red blush that coloured Lilly's cheeks wasn't simply from the warm water. "Rats? Um...but we never have rats. At least not in the baths," Thomas replies, his nervousness starting to return. D'oh, now he went and offended the knight with his unkempt castle. He didn't know rats were a problem here, too. He's got to do something worthy of a castle master and clean this place up, some day. "Um...I always thought the rats would stick to the food stores and...well...there's just no reason they'd be in the baths. Not that you're wrong, I mean...I don't know a thing about rats...," he shakes his head and turns to address Jacques. "You don't think there really might be rats in here, do you? Can you...um...track them or something?" he wonders what could be making that muffled, but shrill noise, too. Wow, it's almost like the rats are...talking. Are they sentient? "Huh? Teleporting?" Viki pushes herself away from the edge of the bath and waddles over to Aila to see what was wrong. She blinks at the hole and then "hmms" slightly, seemingly lost in thought, and completely forgetting Aila's suggestion. She reaches over and lightly pokes at it with a finger. "I saw a similar hole by my mirror!" Ah-ha~! She knew it looked familiar. And grinning proudly at the Karayan girl, she fails to realize that uhh Viki, seeing a similar hole doesn't really solve anything does it? She jumps suddenly at Lilly's screeching, her heart pounding with the fright. Oh, the red headed woman. Viki recognized her of course. It was the lady who ripped feathers off poor defenseless birds. Viki didn't approve.... "I think she's getting angry." She whispers harshly to Aila and Alanis, not wanting to anger Lilly further. "Why don't we check to see what it is?" Take a peek, poke a finger in. Curiousity never hurt anyone. A blush tints Aila's cheeks for just a moment, as she takes a look to the wall, then to Alanis, then to the wall again. So it was! This is even better! "Perfect! We'll finally be able to see what the men of Budehuc castle get up to when they're not surrounded by females. They're probably even -more- irresponsible." Scratch. Crumble. Scratch. Crumble. Crumble. Crumble! The hole, in the blink of an eye, becomes quite a bit larger, easily as wide as a good third of Aila's wrist. Oops. Goro is not going to be happy. The Karaya girl looks apologetically to Lilly, and she edges away from the hole. "Well, why don't you take a look and see? It's a privilege. You should feel honored." A portion of Aila is afraid to look for hersef. One never knows what they might find. Another eye could be staring back! There could be rats! It's just not safe to go hole peeking without first making someone else check. Alanis jerks back as soon as the wall starts to crumble. "Aila!" It's a muffled shriek, and a splash as she crouches back down into the water, chin-deep. They're going to get in trouble for this, for sure. Goro will /not/ be happy. And is that /talking/ she hears on the other side? Well, of course, knowing her luck, the boys' side wouldn't be empty! Now all they need is for Viki to teleport half the wall away, and then... then... Alanis turns red. Bright red. And she gives Aila a /look/. Borus responds to the Castle Master. "Well is sounds like rats, but they hate water, so unless you have water rats--" He is interrupted by the sound of scratching again, and stands up to listen carefully, away from the sound of water. His backside is towards the hole, but he hasn't discovered it yet. (bare...bor-ass!!) Jacques sits up even more, leaning forward and taking a good look around the bath. Nothing seems out of the ordinairy, other than that incessant chatter coming from the wall. "...no," he murmers again. "There wouldn't be rats in a bath." He scoots himself towards the wall, then turns back to Borus and Thomas. "They'd drown. And I haven't seen water rats up here..." The marksman looks thoughtful, checking the wall again. /... I've heard them talk about it... perhaps it's... / After a moment, he looks back at the castle master, giving him a small, curious look. "... maybe it's the ghost of the castle?" Clutching her towel around her, Lilly smirks and makes her way toward the hole in the wall. "Fine. My pleasure. But be assured that I /will/ be informing Goro of the damage to his property!" She stops in front of Aila, shaking her finger, making tsk noises. "Really! This behaviour is appalling. Anyhow." Lilly leans closer to the hole, thinking. "So, why exactly can't I see to the other side? This really isn't a very good hole. Now, in Tinto, we know how to make good holes. Mining /is/ very important. Maybe if I.." She trails off as she reaches her hand in, as far as she can go, poking and pushing forcefully at any resistance. Thomas pales. "The ghost again? Oh, goodness! That would be dreadful! We can't have it in the baths, too!" imagine! It could look in on the women while they bathe! Is there no limit to this phantom's terror?! He gives a sigh. Then, he tenses a bit as he hears a strange sound to his right, in the wall. Some...kind of digging. Reluctantly, he turns towards the wall to investigate. His eye is met with a Lilly finger poking into it. He pulls away as pain takes way and he covers his eye. "Ouch!" he says, shaking his head a bit. "That hurt!" He rubs at his eye and backs up. "What is it?! Is something there?!" his vision is a tad blurry from using only one eye, but it's there. A disembodied hand. "I think you were right, Jacques! We need to get the bishop! Ouch." He rubs his eye further. What a mean and rude ghost! Viki just....stands there as the wall crumbles, leaving a hole big enough to fit a hand into. Aila....Viki mused....sure was a strong girl. And it never registers in Viki's mind that the hole would lead to the -other- side of the bath house. Which meant men. Naked men. Things an innocent girl her age shouldn't see. All she could think of was that -hole-. Master Thomas did mention this was an old castle. So maybe there's treasure~! She moves slightly to the side as Lilly walks up and puts a hand in. "Oh!! If you find anything, can I please have a bit of it?" Especially if it was something really pretty! Like, oh...say, some jewels or something? Aila jumps away from the wall when she hears yelps of pain, and she glares accusationally at Lilly. "Look what you did! You could have been more careful!" Apologetically, she calls in her loudest, clearest voice - which, for her, is really /quite/ elevated above that of others - in the hopes that it'll pierce the wall, "No! No! We're so sorry! Did someone get hurt? Please be okay! I can heal!" Someone restrain Aila, before she rushes to assist the poor, injured castle master. She yanks at Lilly's hand, pulling it violently out of the hole, while guilt flows through her veins; no one was supposed to get hurt in the little spying endeavor. "Haven't you heard of just looking? Why does everyone always have to touch! Look before you touch, they say!" Sheesh. Then, having removed Lilly from the hole, she returns to scraping at it, and it takes little encouragement for it to crumble yet more. Goro's going to flay her and toss her off the ship. But she's trying to rescue poor Thomas! Alanis winces as things go (figuratively) down the drain. She wouldn't dare say anything to Lilly, but really - poking someone? She shouldn't have stuck her hand in that far, anyway. There shouldn't be a hole there in the first place! Especially if someone is over there! She sloshes over to Aila again and looks over her shoulder, peeking at the hole. "Are you alri--" Her hand claps over her mouth. Is that... At the sound of the female voices, Borus sits his knightly white butt down---fast. This is embarrassing, but not nearly as bad as some of the other encounters he's had, so a blush doesn't even break on his cheeks. Once his waist is safely underwater, he turns around from his spot in the corner he sees the now sizable hole. With a grin to Thomas he says, "Apparently you don't have rats. You have girls." ...well. He didn't exactly see that coming. Jacques stares at the hand for a moment, then whispers, in shock, "... there really IS a ghost." He scoots away from the wall as fast as he can, paling a bit, though keeping his poker face. At the sound of the voice, he blinks in surprise. "... the ghost sounds like Aila." Jacques scratches at his cheek, completely oblivious to the fact that the girls were actually peeking in. He looks over at Borus, blinking with surprise, but staying quiet. /... we have girls, not rats? ... girl ghost rats?/ Her eyes widen, a shriek on the edge of her voice as she says, "Master Thomas? I..? What /is/ this? This hole?!" Her voice grows more shrill, and she turns quite red. "Well, I never!" In a huff, water swirling around her, Lilly makes a bee-line straight toward the changing room. Just before reaching the door, she twirled around, shaking her finger at the girls (and at the wall, but.) Her wet hair combined with the look of utter embarrassment and hate made her seem even more severe. "Goro will hear of your vandalization! And I'm sure the entire castle would adore to hear about your hobbies!" She swung around again, and continued her stalk toward the changing room, hoping her threat will keep the girls in line. "You should all hope to grow up with CLASS. Really!" 'You have girls'. ... Girls? Thomas hears Lilly's voice, Aila's voice and Alanis' voice in a flurry. The phantom can't be impersonating people, can it? It also said it's name. Wait...is that really Alanis in the hole? He backs up. "Girls? Um...," he turns bright, BRIGHT red and slowly slumps into the bath water. They're there, they're...they're...he can't look! He'll offend them...and he's got to hide himself from them, too! They'll think he's a pervert and he'd never do that! He can't be known as the perverted castle master. Cecile...no, ALL the women in the castle would smack him! "I'm...um...," but yet, he can't avert his...eye. He backs up more and more, heading towards the door. Out, out, out of this embarrassing situation! Borus settles back into the bath and continues to enjoy the relaxation and tranquility of the atmosphere. If the girls want to look at him, who cares? He closes his eyes and drifts back into the semi-sleep he was in before the 'rats' began scratching. Viki awaits eagerly for Lilly to announce her findings when she hears the unmistakable cry of pain. From a -person-. Her eyes widen in surprise and she immediately splashes her way over to hide behind Aila. Something was alive and breathing in that hole! And she bites her lip anxiously, peeping over Aila's shoulder as she tears away at the hole and as the wall crumbles, reveals.....people. Namely...Master Thomas, Jacques, and the blonde man she recognized from the tavern. Was this magic? She's so confused! Where did they come from? Lilly's angry screeching goes unnoticed and even the.. umm.. state of everyone in the area goes unnoticed as Viki tries to sort everything out. And really, why was Alanis blushing like that? "Are you feeling okay, Alanis?" Maybe she's coming down with a fever.... Aila, standing fully upright in the water, so that only her belly and below is covered, finally gets a good chance to look through the hole, and her tan complexion pales quite dramatically, followed by a blush. Thomas, Borus, and...Jacques. Jacques! She feels faint. Like a sinking stone, she slowly melts into the water, drifting down, down, and even further down, until not even a speck of her remains to be seen. Then again, there is the whole breathing issue. Eventually she surfaces again, gasping for air, and she turns to Viki. "Do you think you could...erh...fix this? Somehow?" Because Aila's plum out of ideas. She's so utterly embarrassed that she wouldn't mind taking the risk of being asssaulted by a rain of oranges or whatever it is that Viki ends up teleporting in. Then again, she hasn't yet realized that the young woman can also teleport things -out-. When Aila sinks into the water, she leaves Alanis unshielded, and the younger girl turns a most interesting shade of red - not much different from the one she frequently wears. She gives a small "Eep!" and her arms clap across her chest, and she tries to sink back into the water. Master Thomas, and /Borus/ and... and... She is too young for this, FAR too young, and she's /staring/! Quick, look away! She wrenches her eyes over to Viki, and says faintly, "Maybe you could teleport me to my room..." Though that may not be much safer, now that she thinks about it. She might just end up in, oh, the Harmonian offices, and that would be BAD! He blinks in surprise once, twice, three times now. /... there are no girl ghost rats?/ Blink. Blink. Jacques lets out a small sigh of relief. It was just Aila, a little girl, and that... he twitches a bit upon seeing Viki, but settles back into the water, giving a wave to Aila. "... hi." He turns his head to Thomas, face still perfectly blank and innocent. "There are no ghosts here. Just girls." Turning back to the remnants of the wall and the underaged, underdressed girls, he points to the stones and debris. "They just broke the wall." With a nod, he lays back in the water, content to soak. or something. Thomas keeps backing up, blushing a bright, bright red. They're naked. He can see them. His eye hurts from Lilly poking it. Why is Jacques just standing there? Isn't he afraid they'll think he's a pervert? Thomas' mother taught him never to do this kind of thing! Uwaaaa! He finally reaches the exit, then realizes they'll see him if he gets out of the water. Hoooo boy, now he's stuck. He tries to reach out and grab a towel without his waist leaving the water and eventually succeeds. Wrapping the towel around him, he rises out of the water, panting. "S..sorry, I didn't...," he blushes further as he looks back, before dashing off. As Aila sinks into the water, Viki is given a full view of the other bath. And the -ahem- naked occupants. She stands there gaping, forgetting to modestly cover her eyes and run from the room like the young girl she was. And she just continues to stand there as she stares and stares and -stares-...until..."Huh? Alanis? Of sure umm, let me go get my wand..." She splashes over to her wand in a daze. Goodness...that was certainly something Viki didn't see everyday. She climbs out of the water and takes a minute to wring out her skirt. Then, picking her wand off the floor, she wonders where exactly she should teleport the girls to. Probably someplace with water...? Ah, okay, she had the perfect place in mind. "Okay, umm here we go~! SHAZAM!" And...SPLASH!!!! Back in water. Coughing, she flips her wet bangs away from her face and looks around at her surroundings. Oh good. She actually got it right this time! But, how come there were so many people here...and -staring- at them? And they were fully clothed and pointing and.... "Oops!!! I forgot the fountain was in the town square!!" Mel strolls down the courtyard and glances up as she hears a sparkle and a sudden splash. She turns her head, slowly, seeing two young girls submerged in the fountain, with bare shoulders exposed to the sun. Mel hurries past, cupping a hand on Branky's eyes. "Branky, don't look. There's so much indecency in this castle... I can't believe some people." Branky cries, "What? Mel? What is it? Mel? MEL!" Oh...dear. Aila sits as still as she possibly can, while watching the world warp around her. The fountain. The fountain in the MIDDLE of the courtyard? What was Viki thinking?! RAWR! "...I question your destination choice." Then, rising, she steps out of the fountain, sticks her chin in the air, and begins the long walk to her quarters. She's given up on maintaining her decency. In fact, it's foolish to be so concerned with nudity. After all, there's nothing worth seeing, especially when it comes to Aila...or so she fiercely believes. Let them write or gossip about it all they want. As far as she's concerned, she just. Doesn't. Care. End of discussion. Is Aila LEAVING? Of all the times to just get up and walk away! Alanis is brighter than her clothing now - too bad that clothing is still sitting on the bench in the bathhouse! She looks around frantically, arms still shielding her chest, and spots Viki. Yes! Cover! She jumps up and, as fast as she possibly can, dashes over to Viki and clings to her back, holding tightly to the girl's waist. There. If they have to see something, it can be her back. Yes, that's right, that's what she'll tell herself. "My room! I meant teleport me to my ROOM, not the fountain!" She's not letting go until she gets to her room. Ohhhhhhh, is she going to be in trouble!