The Khijovians arrive in Herwa

Drbeansguy

As the aethermotive raises into the air, the translator has one last thing to say to them

Translator: "Make sure your cartographer knows he is an idiot!"

The translator laughs and directs his attention at their new guests, he locks eye contact with them, then he looks back at the minister. She pats his shoulder and walks back to the election site, and so does everyone else, but he stays to greet our new guests.

Corto: "Well lets get introductions out of the way, my name is Corto with the linguistics division. That lady you met was the minister of diplomatic affairs, or foreign affairs if you hate our titles, Miss minister marry. You caught us at the end of the elections so she apologizes for your first impression, but if you could follow me i can introduce you to Herwa's new prime director.

He starts to walk towards the election grounds, then quickly stops and does a 180.

Corto: "Oh one last thing, i assume you are very upset about a smell, well i can tell you with full confidence that its not us. Its our food, it smells like death incarnate (haha death joke) and for that we are sorry. We have been told its good if you can get past the smell however"

Balco

Ambassadors Livetia Daston and Grenio Karo looked at each other as a sign of ironic understanding and grinned at the terrible Prestorian spoken by Corto, whispering in their ear ephemeral jokes in Khijovian. The native looked at them aware of the subject of ridicule with an ambiguous forced smile, then laughed artificially with them in embarrassment. Finally, the Khijovians addressed the native directly:

Grenio Karo: "So… where do we go now? I have tons of questions right now!.."

Livetia Daston: "Indeed, where will you welcome us?"

Grenio Karo: "And when will we formally meet your minister of diplomatic affairs?"

Drbeansguy

Corto: "So many questions and yet not enough time, then again im only 68 so i have about 700 more years so i have time. So what the hell ill answer your questions.

Corto claps his hands and grows a smile on his face, clearly he has not done anything with his 68 years of living.

Corto: "We can provide a temperary housing in the captial, waterside view with beds only costing 9.95 extra for a bed frame. But ofcorse any cultural acomodations will be free. Also herwa dosent have a minister of diplomatic afairs, we tenicaly dont have a leader yet, but once the election is over the cabnet will be in power and we will have a diplomatic afairs minister.

Balco

Grenio Karo: "All right, I understand. ...so, shall we continue or do we stay here in the middle of the road?"

Livetia could not help herself and quietly laughed at the inexperienced native. Grenio assumed that perhaps he had just been hired, so he didn't blame him.

Corto: "Oh, r-right!.. Sorry, yes, just follow me. I'll lead you to the election grounds."

Drbeansguy

As the trio walks to the election grounds the sceenery becomes less of an amazing sea front, and turns into a horde of necroids watching the stage very intently. They flat out ignore everything around them, their only foucus is on that stage. Then Miss marry walks up on stage, waves at the skimtari in the crowd, then she taps on her legs for some reason.

Marry walks up to the box set up on a table and takes a paper out and reads it outloud "the skimtari first party won the seat of prime director." with that marry tosses the card behind her back and walks off the stage.

Balco

The minister left the big stage and, as soon as a smiling individual emerged, the crowd of necroids immediately erupted in a roaring rumble of shouts and cheers, and flowers and objects of any kind began to be thrown in the air as a sign of success. The prominent character cheered on stage and waved to the crowd below, soon noticing in the distant the presence of two unknown humans.

Corto: "Ah, yes! We arrived just in time."

The skimtari indicated the scene to the Khijovian ambassadors with his arm and tried to make himself heard given the absurd noise.

Corto: "Herwa's election is over; the one you see on stage over there is our new Prime Director! Hm, I don't remember his name though… Let me think for a moment."

Drbeansguy

Corto: Gah i dont remember, he might say his name sooner or later. But hold out because i think he is going to say a speech before the band comes, yes i said band.

The prime director takes center stage once the cheers die down.

Mr prime direcor: "Thank you my fellow skimtari, today is a great day for the nation of herwa. Me and my party will assure you that we will bring herwa to the center stage of pytha, and we will drag herwa to be on par with tepror and japuile. On this land of which you stand is one of great opertunity, the opertunity for riches and glory. Now i know you dont wish for me to drag this speech out so let the band roam."

After he waves his hands in a magical fasion the humans hear some noises, and its the noise of sybols, bass drums, and snare drums. Thats right its the drum line, and they are loud, extremely loud. However the humans find thats it does not sound horrible, but it sounds good, great even.

Balco

Once the short speech by the new Prime Director was over, the crowd cheered loudly at the spectacular arrival of a large band on stage. The music that played was absolutely alien to the two Khijovians, who nevertheless had enjoyed the show with a smile on their faces; that unknown land surprised them more and more. At the end of the pleasantly bizarre performance Grenio and Livetia clapped along with the crowd of necroids and laughed with Corto amused.

Corto: "Oh, here they come!"

Soon the sympathetic trio was approached by a body of guards and by the Prime Director himself.

Drbeansguy

The prime director stares at the humans for a little bit, then talks in ministry standard which roughly translates into "who are these organics?"
Corto turns to his new fleshy friends and tells the prime director their names, then he blanks out for a bit. It looks like his soul got riped out of his body, then he snaps back and talks to the new buddies.

Corto: "You have any titles or somthing, i think if you want to establish relations you might want to introduce yourself to the prime director correctly"

Balco

Grenio cleared his throat and started speaking in Prestorian:

"Salutations - and especially congratulations-, Prime Director. My name is Grenio Karo, and my colleague here is Livetia Daston; we are two Cabinet Ambassadors of the Khijovian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Baroness Caesaria Auguston. We have been instructed to remain in your land for a couple of weeks to attend your election ceremonies and celebrations, and of course to officially establish diplomatic relations with you."

Corto translated it into Ministry Standard to the Prime Director, who smiled slightly at the idea of already being about to open a foreign embassy in Herwa.

Drbeansguy

"Alright fine, i will introduce you too my director of diplomacy once i get settled in, but if you will please exsuce me i have things to do." As fast as he talked he walked away faster, leaving our poor trio very very confused. nevertheless corto speaks up through the confusion.

"Right, well i will show you to your new home for the coming weeks, it probably wont be as big as you are used to but it should work"

Corto starts to clear a path through ythe skimtari with a mixture of polite nudging to forcful shoving, but they still break through the horde. Then they reach the captial building, after a long 15 minutes of breaking through skimtari.

Corto: "Well this is the captial building, all built in 2 weeks, and we couldnt be more proud. Anyways if you have any questions i would ask them now, because after i drop you off at your room i need to get back to field HQ"

Balco

The two ambassadors reflected for a moment, then Livetia spoke.

Livetia: "Do you happen to know when we will meet your... director of diplomacy?"

Corto: "Negative, ma'am. But surely you will be notified once the time is officially set."

Grenio: "Uhm, Corto?"

Corto: "Yes sir?"

Grenio: "We two are a bit hungry, yes, we need to refresh ourselves. Would you take us somewhere to eat?"

Corto observed the two Khijovians while their stomachs rumbled, then laughed nervously.

Corto: "Sure, sure… So I'll have to buy you the food, right? Charming... But first, Iet's just go to your room."

Drbeansguy

The intrgued trio walks through the winding halls of the captial building, and passing the odd MoSs agent and berucrat on their way. then they make it to their new home, a somewhat large office space with a huge window looking out to the sea.

Corto: "Well welcome to your home office thingy, beds can be requested at the front desk. We have really confertable beds so that should not be a problem. MoSs field HQ is right next door so just knock if you need me, well dont knock go in and ask for me. I will go get you food, i think i saw a pasta stand so thats good, and um yeah thats it.

Corto gives a slight nod and starts to walk away.

Balco

The two Khijovians said goodbye to Corto and warily entered their pseudo-apartment, struck by that futuristic and alien furniture. It was a rather spacious studio flat, and the first thing that caught their eye was the large window with a spectacular view of the sea. The ambassadors placed their luggage on a sofa and inspected the room curiously, noting the strange contraptions and devices present.

Livetia: "Ehm, so we'll sleep in here... t-together..?"

Grenio: "...it seems so."

Livetia blushed slightly at the embarrassing implication, but Grenio suddenly broke the ambiguous silence by opening the large window, allowing the sweet salty breeze from the coast to enter and cool the interior of the room.

Grenio: "My dear, I'm going to the front desk to request the bed; uhm, I'll also try to ask for more information on this… bizarre technology here."

Livetia promptly nodded and, taking advantage of her colleague's absence, decided to change: she undressed and put on a graceful informal dress in burgundy tending towards fuchsia, typical of Klettorian noblewomen. She unpacked her stuff from the bags and arranged them neatly, then went to the window to admire the coastal panorama. She stood there for a couple of minutes but suddenly heard a knock at the door. Livetia went to open it expecting to see Grenio, however she found before her a smiling Corto holding two plates of pasta with what seemed like tomato sauce.

Corto: "Here, ma'am. Take these."

Livetia put the dishes on the table and hugged the Skimtari.

Livetia: "Thank you very much, Corto!"

The necroid stood in bewilderment for a moment: he had never received a hug from a human before. He shook his head in confusion and somewhat tenderness, then noticed Grenio and another Skimtari arriving while carrying a large mattress.

Drbeansguy

Corto: “So I have no idea what you just did, but I will assume you did not try and attack me. So that sure is something.”

Corto then directs his attention to grieno and his coworker struggle to work the mattress it. Then like magic he gives it one tug and it falls into the room, it also happens to fall on the skimtari.

Corto: “there we go, your mattress is here, and you even have a doormat hehe. But alas I must get back to my job, so just get situated in this room. The light switch is on the wall, just give it a flick or a clap, and there is a terminal in the wall, don’t touch it.”

Corto looks at the duo and gives them a big thumbs up, then he drags the skimtari out of the room.

Balco

The two Skimtari started to leave but, suddenly, Livetia grabbed Corto's arm to stop him.

Livetia: "Corto, wait, could you enter our room for a moment?"

Corto: "Well, I actually have to go to work right n-"

He didn't even have time to finish the sentence before he was pulled in with surprising force.

Livetia: "Look here, what are these technological devices?"

She pointed to a large flat black screen hanging on the wall, then showed a small parallelepiped-shaped device with strange buttons on it.

Drbeansguy

Corto: “Oh that, yeah that’s just a television . Nothing special.

While still being held corto our presses a button on the wall and the screen just slowly moves towards the window.

Corto: “this thing is really cool, see if you turn it on things will start to show. It can be almost anything, that is made in japuile, we don’t do acting. But that’s it, anyways that little thingy in the middle is a terminal, do not touch it.”

When he finishes talking he starts to try and break free from her grasp.

Balco

Grenio noticed that Corto struggled to free himself from his colleague's grip, then laughed nervously while separating them carefully.

Grenio: "Corto, please forgive Livetia; she is just… affectionate, yes."

Livetia grinned warmly and the poor Corto, more confused than ever, walked away hesitantly. Grenio closed the door and arranged the mattress in the space under the window, while his colleague would sit down at the small table to have lunch. The two ate their pasta dishes and chatted interestedly about the strange native people and their bizarre technology.

Livetia: "Grenio, would you like to come with me to the beach? It's really lovely!"

Grenius: "Actually, my dear, I'm staying here for a while: I'm quite tired, it's better that I rest. You can go ahead, and if you don't find me in my room when you come back, I'll probably be at Corto's."

Livetia: "Um, could you turn around? I have to change…"

Grenio: "Hold up; w-what? There's no private bathroom in this…cheap little studio flat.?!"

The colleague shook her head, then Grenio sighed and went to the window to admire the coast. He noticed that there wasn't a soul on the beach, not even any beach towels, then he ascertained that probably the natives weren't used to swimming in the sea or just having fun on the seafront. In Khijovia, on the other hand, going to the beach was basically one of the pillars of its culture, as the coast was always full of people having fun since the times of the ancient Khijovic city-states. It almost made him regret not going with Livetia, but he was really exhausted and besides, he also had to draw up a long series of pro forma diplomatic documents in both Khijovian and apparently Prestorean. Oh, what would he do for a nice nap before the meeting! Now, hearing the sweet sound of the sea waves, he was so drowsy that he could have fallen asleep at any moment on the window.

To awaken him from his state of early somnolence was Livetia's gracious voice, who had meanwhile finished putting on her swimwear.

Livetia: "What do you think? Do you like it?"

Grenio reluctantly studied her for a moment, then he frowned in bewilderment.

Grenio: "But tell me, why did you even conveniently bring a bathing suit with you anyways..?"

Livetia shrugged and took her bag with her, then said goodbye to her colleague as she was about to leave the room. Meanwhile, Grenio sat down on the table to start the work but, as soon as he grabbed the pen, he closed his eyes and fell asleep deeply.

Drbeansguy

Half an hour later the building starts to get filled with raido chatter and boots hitting the ground. It sounds like an entire army is running inside the building, may types of voices can be heard, some giving orders and some giving it. but in the sea of the voices one is fimiliar, its corto, and he is running up to the room.

Corto is knocking on the door, and he keeps knocking till Grenio wakes up and opens the door. So that is what he does, once ethe door is opend he can see corto standing with his MoSs uniform and he has both a mix of exsitement and panic in his face.

Corto: "Hey Gernio, um good news and bad news. Good news is that you can meet the director of diplomatic afairs now, bad news is that im going to need you to come with me now. You didnt do anything, but the MoSs is not willing to have a security risk, so if you and miss..... where is the other one?"

Balco

Grenio, still half asleep, remained dumbfounded by all that commotion coming from the corridor, then observed Corto with an irritated expression.

Grenio: "Ah, go off! I can never rest in peace... Let me sleep, please..!"

Corto: "I'm sorry but you absolutely have to come with me; those are orders from the superiors."

Grenio stared at the Skimtari with a sinister expression full of venom, then reluctantly left the room.

Corto: "…anyway: where is your friend?"

Grenio: "Ehm, friend..? Oh, Livetia..! Yes, yes; she's gone to the beach, yeah."

Corto sighed and rubbed his wrinkly forehead.

Meanwhile, Livetia was blissfully lying prone on the sand and was enjoying the gentle sea breeze. Suddenly, she heard nearby footsteps and soon a long shadow started to cover her. She turned slowly and saw an unknown Skimtari looming before her.

« Previous Page Next Page »