Steampunk Treasure Hunt!

[Kelila]

Okay, since this is my first time doing a steampunk roleplay, you guys are gonna have to help me with this, but I'll do my best! I'm just DYING for something to do here. This is probably going to be completely random and full of anachronisms (since I'm bad at history), but hey, what is steampunk for?

Time setting: Victorian-ish. Whatever. Since this is alternate history, we can do what we want.
Location: New York City, Norrisson Conference Hall
Basic Plot: An international convention of adventurers has been called. Invitations, flyers, and posters have been sent out everywhere. Brave souls from all over the world have come to a great conference hall, where they will hear an important message. Some have heard rumors that the message involves a great treasure beyond everyone's wildest dreams. Some are just seeking a good adventure. In any case, it sounds ridiculously fun. They all await the moment when the announcer will read the message to everyone.
Technology allowed: Dirigibles. Ornithopters. Telegraph. Steam-powered vehicles of any kind, including robots. Whatever. Just make it interesting.

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Liza Riptree was milling about the large crowd gathered in the main conference hall. She took some time to marvel at the lofty vaulted ceiling and tall windows on the south wall, but her main interest was in the other people. There were dapper gentlemen, finely dressed ladies, scruffy thrill-seekers, shady characters, spry young inventors, and many, many more. They were all there because of the mysterious message. Her own curiosity had been piqued by the large poster slapped against the brick wall she had seen on her way home one day. "COME ALL WHO SEEK ADVENTURE," it had said, "AND YOU WILL FIND IT." Liza had promptly jumped in a carriage and set off for New York the very next day. Now, she was here, about to hear some strange message of great fortune. She chatted on and off with various random people in the conference hall, hoping to find someone to pair up with if a voyage was in good order.

[Elli]

((This sounds really interesting... I may join it ))

[Kelila]

((Ahahahah. I have no idea what I was thinking when I made this. We'll see how it goes...))

[Daeiel]

((Is 'Steampunk' something I should be familiar with? Or may I just make up something as I go, because this does sound most interesting!!!))

[Paladin]

(( I just Kermit-flailed. I *will* be joining this))

[ptsluvsnfl]

(( To Miss Daeiel, Steampunk info here.
Good examples of the Steampunk genre would be Disney’s ‘Treasure Planet’ and the Japanese manga/anime ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’. ))
((Join! As it's hard to be active here, I'd like to take the wheel just a bit. Please tell me if I've crossed the line, okay?))

“Master, is this a mistake?” A figure paced the dimly lit room. He used hand gestures as he spoke. Something seemed to be distracting the man, for he turned once to open the ornate door behind him. Wafting up the stairs outside came the sounds of a gathering crowd.
“Angelo, look at me,” it was a casual command, though the voice belied some sternness.
Angelo closed the door and slowly looked over his shoulder.
“This is a game,” the Master said promptly. Seemingly ignoring the person he had been speaking to, the speaker waved a gloved hand toward a shadowed corner, “Do you enjoy games, Due?”
“No, Master," a muffled voice answered, "I do not enjoy games,”
“I do,” Master gave no hint of emotion in his voice, “-I especially like to watch others lose the game,”
Angelo was silent. He scratched his head slowly, and squinting at the darkness, searched for Due’s form.
“For this game, I am the Dealer. ” Master continued as he turned his back to Angelo. "Of all the games, I do enjoy gambling the most,"
“Master, the Dealer doesn’t gamble,” Angelo retorted quietly.
“Everyone gambles,” Master retorted, lighting a cigar, “Every one of the men and women who accepted the open invitation took a gamble when they stepped through the door. I consider any human worth their waste playing the game to be astute enough to expect it to be rigged,” Pointing his cigar at Angelo, “you will play the cards up my sleeve, -so as not to disappoint them,”
Angelo was taken aback, “I don’t understand what you mean,”
“He wants us to inflict danger upon the participants,” from the shadows came the sound of soft footsteps, “and what is to be gained from this, Master?” the pure-white face of a mask emerged.
Speaking as one who dangled a key before a prisoner’s cell, “You can test your new poison, Due,” came Master’s reply.
The masked man withdrew a small flask from his coat pocket, “This is the one,” was Due’s muffled whisper.
Smugly, Master took a seat and turned his attention toward Angelo, “I suggest you find the proper attire," Master spoke again, “In a few minutes, the game will begin,”
“Yes, Master,”

(( Man, I haven’t role played for so long, I’m a little rusty. Keli, is it alright if I did this to the plot? If not, I can change it!
I decided to go for playing the villains this time. The main one, the Master will use his two apprentices to attack/manipulate/murder the people participating along the way.
Once again, let me know if you had something else in mind. ))
(( I will have profiles up for Angelo and Due soon. They’re names are pronounced ‘AHN-jeh-lo’ and ‘DwAY’, the latter being the Italian word for the number two. ))

[Kelila]

((Paladin, your post made me LOL so hard. XD That image...))
((Also, thank you so much, Kendi! I'm such an incompetent RP host. @___@ I'm sure it'll be more interesting this way. Imma gonna wait for more people to post before I do so again.))

[Daeiel]

((All right, then, I suppose I shall post!))

"Kip, this really isn't the time or the place for this..."

Kip, otherwise known as Christopher Saunders, adjusted his aviator goggles and tapped the bridge of his nose. "Ah, I beg to differ, if I may."

"You may not."

"The analysis of the fingerprints on this advertisement could prove to be quite informative as to, you know, who's our competition, what's their history, and, you know, stuff like that."

"Kip, whenever you say 'stuff like that', it sends a shiver down my spine."

"What? Lighting a public advertisment on fire is not a crime!"

"Who says? We're in America now, you nitwit. When in Rome..."

"Light things on fire."

"No, do as the Romans do."

"Ah, but we're not in Rome, are we, Richie?"

Richard Mayhew clapped a hand to his head and drew it down his face, letting the skin slide down and snap back, in order to appear all the more aggrivated with his accomplice. "Kip, we're in New York. It's close on the running tab with Rome's moral depravity. So, with it being a stretch, we are, almost, in Rome."

"Almost," replied Kip, moving to snap his fingers, thus igniting the hapless poster.

[ptsluvsnfl]

(( Your post made me laugh out loud, Daeiel! XD It's so much more entertaining than my cliche villain speech. I'm still working on the 'Master' so I was pretty much brain dead as I made him talk. ^^;
Are you going to make profiles for those two? ))

[Daeiel]

((Sorry I took so long to get back to you, I was on holiday with my family. We went to the beach, and I got most dreadfully sunburned!!

At any rate, yes, I suppose I should put up profiles for Kip and Richie, though, to be perfectly honest, right now I'm just too tired. )

[Paladin]

A sigh was masked beneath the boisterous crowd. A young man sat in a red velvet chair against the walls, avoiding the thicket of people. Despite his recluse, he gazed intently at the throngs of inventors gathering together in one group. Many of whom barely had a penny to their name, while others were innovative enough to invent something so versatile or convenient to make themselves richer than even most business men. Ideas and equations fired back and forth, giving no chance for hesitation. In the middle, of course, Elena.

"Elena!" Onlookers beckoned to capture the attention of the woman holding a very strange contraption in her right arm. What may look like scraps of copper and cogs to a passerby took the appearance, when observed with an observative gaze, of a feline creature, the size of a large boot, encased in metal armor.

"Miss Cobblestone! Miss Cobblestone!" a tall and thin woman dressed in an unfashionable bloomer suit and thick curls untamed by her grey jockey cap called out. "Amalia Webber, with the New York Times."

"Pleasure" Elena half yelled in order to be heard over the fuss of her invention, or rather, her father's invention. She merely helped, as she often told him. She doesn't need the credit, she had deduced more than once. "I assume you want to know a bit about the-"

"Exactly!" Amalia grinned, whipping a pen from under her hat and a leather bound journal from her coat pocket. "So, just to confirm the information releases just a few days ago by Cobblestone Industries, does this... robot, actually express intelligence and emotion on a human level?" She moved her pen to the direction of the robotic feline as she approached it with the curiosity of a child.

"Best be careful. She's very defensive of me."

"She?"

"Well, this specific robot did not have a specified gender. However, due to it's artificial brain, it is able to pick up habits that shape it's individual personality. Blair here always looks at her self in the mirror before she goes outside. That's when I knew a female" Elena laughed

"Any plans to mass market these robots?"

"Well, honestly, I don't quite know why anyone would want one-oh hush Blair- "

"Well, thank you for your time, Elena" Amalia shook Elena's hand and with that, she was off.

[ptsluvsnfl]

(( 'Blair here always looks at her self in the mirror before she goes outside. That's when I knew she was a female.'
I like her already! Fun, fun! ))

[Kelila]

"Are you sure you want to do this, Jonathan?" The fatherly figure placed a hand on the young man's shoulder, his faced creased with worry. "You don't know what kind of lunatics could be in that crowd..." he said softly, hoping that their voices wouldn't echo down the long, dimly lit hallway beside the main conference hall.

Jonathan Norrisson gulped and tugged on his necktie, visibly nervous. He was twenty-three years old and smartly dressed for the occasion, outfitted in his Sunday best, but he felt like a silly schoolboy about to give his first class presentation. His anxiety caused him to absent-mindedly crumple his speech notes as he replied, "Well-- It's-- I think it'll be all right. I-- I mean... This is what grandfather would want me to do. I think." He winced at that last statement. "I mean, this whole thing. I'm not the best speaker, I know, but-- but, I feel like I should have the responsibility as his heir. Plus, I could never handle the... well, the prestige and power. That's why I'm-- I'm giving it away."

The man's eyes widened for a brief moment, then he relaxed himself and gave a half-smile. "Well, if that's what you think your grandfather would have wanted, Jonathan. I just hope you're not throwing away your future... The baby in the bathwater, you know."

Jonathan reddened, his eyes fixed on his adviser. Glancing over the man suspiciously, he analyzed his expression for any forewarning of betrayal. After a few moments of tense silence, he turned his back on the man and murmured, "I know what I'm doing. Grandfather would want this... I'm sure." He pushed open the heavy wooden side door to the great hall and entered, striding confidently.

The man remained where he was, his arms crossed across his chest, a sarcastic hint of a smile on his lips. He leaned back against a wall and chuckled softly to himself. "Oh, Jonny lad, you are so naive. You indeed have much to learn. We shall see. We shall see."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clutching her cleverly designed parasol/sword, Liza moved closer towards the commotion, peering over the heads of the crowd. Her innate sense of curiosity had kicked in. Whatever it was, she had heard the words "mechanical" and "robot". It was enough to pique her interest. "What on earth is all this hubbub about?" she wondered aloud, pressing through the people and using the point of her parasol to motivate those who were less inclined to make way for her. Coming nearer to the center of the excitement, she caught a glimpse of cogs and wheels in various combination, forming what looked like a cat. "Oh, dandy." She elbowed her way through the last few circles of spectators, and stood at the front with her hands on her hips. "Automaton, or true robot?" she asked Miss Cobblestone, a bold smirk on her face.

[ptsluvsnfl]

(( Please forgive my character's familiarity with Jonathan's grandfather! If that's not possible, just say that he's lying! -he does that! XD ))
“Ah, young Jonathan Norrisson!” An older man’s voice followed after the heir as he exited the room. “Mihael Tinker! I was a friend of your grandfather’s!” The man seemed unconcerned with the fact that Jonathan was attempting to start the event with his entry. -Such a soft-spoken lad could not have attracted much attention anyway. The man smiled warmly, a cigar dangling from the corner of his mouth. Pulling it out, he exhaled, hardly paying attention to whether or not the young man had stopped to speak with him (or even heard him at all).
Mr. Tinker was dressed in a short jacket with a checkered vest underneath; casual yet his considerable wealth was belied by his pure gold watch chain, and the ivory buttons on his cuffs.
---
A young man with hollow cheeks and deep-set eyes surveyed the room from outside town hall. For a few minutes now, he had been standing near the open front door, muttering to himself in incomprehensibly gruff words.
The man looked a little too lost to be an adventurer or young inventor, though he seemed to be dressed like one. Behavior like this, though, appeared to be simply a case of bad nerves.
“I’m doing this for Vale,” He told himself yet again, but grimaced at the trace of doubt in the voice.
Hearing the reporters and the crowd begin to shuffle to one place, the man realized that his eyes had not seen though he had been looking straight ahead. “Concentrate, fool,” He whispered, moving his hand along the door. His gloved fingers nudged a long stick-like object, wrapped well in sheets. It fell at the force of his touch, and he turned quickly to pick it up.

(( Yikes, I used the pronoun "he" waaay too much. >_< ))

[Daeiel]

"Kip, stop it."

Christopher Saunders, mid-chemical analysis of the advertisment, swirled the little flask around twice before taking a whiff of its chemical-fire-saturated scent.

"Right now," continued Richie.

"Hmm." Kip pursed his lips, adjusted his goggles, and proceeded to carefully measure a single drop of the strange-scented concoction onto a strip of highly sensitive material.

"Kip, you're not listening to me, are you?"

Kip narrowed his eyes, peering intently through their rather scuffed lenses as the drop outlined five different sets of multi-coloured fingerprints.

"Of course you're not listening to me. You're a certifiable lunatic. Why did I think you would listen to me? Why didn't I leave you behind in England, hmm? Now, in hindsight, I realize that this has been one of the biggest mistakes in my lifetime, gallavanting with you across the Atlantic. Why didn't I leave you behind?"

"Because," countered Kip, giving Richie the shock of his life by realizing that his partner was listening, "Without me, you can't tell North from South."

"Without me, you can't tell your face from your arse."

Kip cracked his customary smile, which, due to the goggles, the flaming tube, and the flashing sets of fingerprints in his hands made him look like he'd gone round the bend, and tapped a chemically-saturated finger to the bridge of his nose. "With you, there's not much difference between those two."

[Paladin]

As soon as Liza questioned the robot's consciousness, Blair's ears perked upwards. It slowly opened it's copper eyelids, dragging out the sound of metal sliding on metal. Blair then just gazed at Liza with her green lens-like glass eyes, creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. "Automated, she is not." Elena responded politely. She assumed Blair had an automatic distaste for this woman. For what, she could not say. But was it dislike? It unnerved Elena how sometimes even she couldn't tell what her own creation was thinking. "Elena. Elena Cobblestone." She held her hand out to this bold woman.


((I had to retype this three times. It was originally way longer. But after the third time, I lost my patience for this post ))

[Kelila]

Liza took Elena's hand in a tight grip and shook it enthusiastically. "Pleasure to meet you, Miss Cobblestone. I am Violet Elizabeth Maypoole Riptree, but everyone usually calls me Liza. Delighted to meet your acquaintance, absolutely delighted. It looks as if you have some impressive work here. A real robot, eh? Well, that's grand. I never could get beyond a finely crafted music box myself, but it's glad to see someone succeed in the realm of artificial intelligence-- Oh dear. I'm rambling, aren't I? Sorry, m'dear, when you get to be as old and lonesome as I am, you feel the need to use your hoard of speech on something." She grinned sheepishly. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed, seeing Blair's eyes for the first time. "What a beautiful color! Just like my kitten's eyes when I had one as a girl. What's her name?" Liza was completely unaware of the death stare Blair was actually giving her, but she did love those eyes.

---------------------------------------------------------------
“Mihael Tinker! I was a friend of your grandfather’s!”

Jonathan halted for a brief moment, his left hand still on the heavy wooden door, then said over his shoulder, "So they all say, Mr. Tinker." He sighed. "You have no idea how many people have told me that same exact thing even just this morning." He massaged the bridge of his nose with his free hand, obviously annoyed, then remembered where he was going and walked on, letting the door close behind him with a deep thud.

As he strode towards the stage and speaker's podium at the front of the hall, Jonathan murmured to himself, "Great heavens. Look at this. There must be hundreds of people here. This may be harder than we thought..." He climbed the stairs to the stage and made his way to the podium, smoothing out his crushed notes and making last-second adjustments to his general appearance. Reaching the podium, he laid out his notes and looked out over the crowd. No one seemed to pay him any mind. His face flushed as he realized he would have to make an attempt to raise his voice to call everyone's attention. "Ahem!" he began rather loudly, but no one noticed. "Uh, pardon me, everyone!..." Still, no one turned. He tugged nervously on his necktie.

"ALL RIGHT, EVERYONE," boomed a loud voice. It was the man that had consulted with Jonathan in the hallway. "LISTEN UP. WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY TO CHIT-CHAT, YOU KNOW." He grinned and gave Jonathan a wink and a thumbs-up.

Jonathan paled, now that the attention was on him. He waited for everyone to organize themselves.

[Elli]

((I am going to try and join this, but I'm not sure how to enter...))

[ptsluvsnfl]

(( O, woe is me! My first character to try and interact with someone else's and Jonathan blows me off! XD I need more social characters. ))


Mr. Tinker regarded the comment as though he had not heard it and, brushing some ashes from his collar, turned back down the hallway.
"Due, it seems the festivities have started," he murmered as he passed a room, "Look sharp now," he kept on walking, even humming to himself.
"Yes, Master," the door creeked some moments later, and Due looked out, bearing no emotion in his expression as he wiped away the blood from his mask.

---

"Ahem," the nervous man gave a sheepish cough, "Thank you, sir," as a gentleman offered him the covered pole he had so foolishly knocked over.
A loud voice from inside caught his attention. Slipping inside casually, (and as easily as was possible with the long item he held) the man found a place against the wall.

(( So when are Kip and Richie going to hurry up and get over here? XD ))

[Kelila]

((Haha, don't take it too personally, Kendi. Jonathan's just REALLY stressed out right now. Normally he'd stay and talk, but he's tired of having to deal with ALL THESE PEOPLE. He'll probably talk to Mr. Tinker after his speech.))

((Elli, right now it's basically just a convention of adventurers. Feel free to insert your character anywhere in Norrisson Conference Hall!))