Who ARE those people? (CLOSED, ATTN: Anthro Peoples)

[Parina]

Cypriacium, Parina
It was early afternoon in Cypriacium, around 12:30. Most of the city was at work, many off working in the factories a few miles from the city limits or at their places of employment. Teams of workmen manned scaffolds, doing building and repair work in exchange for a meal and a few pounds.

The sun was high over the red brick structures that formed the bulk of Cypriacium’s buildings, and many of the workmen-and most of the people with jobs in Cypriacium were men-had stripped down to their waists, brown skin glistening with sweat.

The small ship pulled up to the dock in-between larger freighter and one of Parina’s Hatchet-class frigates. The seamen secured the ship to the dock with ropes and dropped a wide gangplank so their passengers could cross from sea to shore. The seamen were a bit nervous about their passengers-after all, they were covered in fur.

[Anthro Peoples]

IC:

First to debark the ship was the entirely-disappointingly?-human Erasmus Ehinger, a purely Caucasian man of average height and build brown hair, and blue eyes covered by glasses. Known to his friends as Raz, he had come along both as an insurance policy against bigotry, and just because he was a buddy.

Next down was a second human, a tall, curvacious green-eyed redhead named Skye Northwood. She also wore slim designer-framed glasses, but apart from that, she looked flawless.

Next to come down...was a skunk. An honest-to-God, anthro skunk. Kunigonde Østergaard was a tall, lithe specimen with platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, and a thick bushy tail she kept up in an arch when she walked. Her twin sister, Odilia walked down just behind her, almost in step. She wore her hair up to make sure people could tell who was who, but would make no attempts otherwise to help observers out.

Finally, there came what could only be described as a leviathan. Tijana Babača was the Colonel-Commandant of the Confederate States Marine Corps, but she was now on a vacation looking to unwind a little. She was a lioness with long blonde hair, and a seven and a half foot-tall, curvy, but well muscled frame that had led some to call her "A well formed tank" in her own homeland. Her slate gray eyes swept the area with a seemingly almost lazy but constant scrutiny.

Each of them carried some bags of personal belongings, and all wore cargo pants of some kind, shirts and durable jackets. The twins casually patted the man at the gangplank on his arm as they debarked.

"Well, now," Babača said, her cool voice carrying great authority. "Let's see what we can find, shall we?"

[Parina]

There weren't many people on the docks-just dockworkers, to whom furries were not an uncommon sight. Their eyes were more focused on Skye, but the skunk twins and a 7 foot lioness drew some stares as well.

The seaman brushed him arm, as if to wipe away the twins' touch. "Furry creeps," he muttered as he raised the gangplank.

Straight ahead of the group was the rest of the city, specifically a wide road leading to the main city square. The docks continued seemingly forever on either side of the group.

[Anthro Peoples]

IC:

Most people do not seem to take in to account the fact that many species of furry have hearing that is, by human standards, past the norm. Tijana casually glanced back up at the man who had just made the "furry creeps" remark. Her facial expression was not angry, not really, being more the weary-eyed stare of somebody witnessing a familiar stupidity in a new place. She hefted her bag, shockingly not the largest in the group, though still large, and turned to keep pace with the others as they began to walk inland. They were all young in comparison to her, all college students on vacation from the University of Damvergi. She had only 'hooked up' with them because she had been quietly asked to by some comrades in order to keep them safe in a potentially hostile land.

"Where do we go from here?" asked Kunigonde.

"I vote we leave the port district and find out what's in the city itself," was Ehinger's calm reply. "I like this architecture a lot."

Kunigonde roller her eyes. Raz was studying to be an architect.

"I'm hungry," Odilia informed.

"You're always hungry," Skye answered with a laugh.

Tijana sighed, the chesty noise catching the group's attention.

"First things first," she said firmly as they looked her way. "We need to find a place to stay. Once that's done, we can think about food and admiring the local buildings."

Her decision made, the lioness waked confidently down the wide avenue leading in to the city, leaving the others to follow her after just a moment's pause.

"Kinda' pushy, isn't she?" Odilia asked Skye.

"She'd old," Skye answered. "Old people like to be in charge around youngsters."

Thus began the search for temporary lodgings. The group decided first to examine one of the hotels built to house merchants from the port. If that proved too expensive, there were local family-run inns which would likely cost a good deal less.

[Parina]

The hotels were set along the road into the city, most reasonably priced but not as cheap as one of the family-run establishments. However, they offered better accomodations and more modern conveiniances than the inns.

A few more people gave them stares as they walked, but furries were nothing new around here. The problem would be finding a family which would take the furries in if the hotels were too expensive.

[Anthro Peoples]

OOC:

I'm taking a small liberty deciding the receptionist's gender, I realize, but it's just to keep things moving.

IC:

Inside a few minutes, the Confederates had walked enough inland to find a building they were sure from the sign was a hotel. Pausing a moment to appreciate the structural model a bit, they entered and walked casually up to the receptionist's desk. Tijana motioned the sisters Østergaard to hang back and checked to see the receptionist's sex, to decide who she let make the approach. Raz ended up being it, and she nodded at the man. He handed his bags to the lioness and calmly walked up to the desk.

"Hello, miss," he began. "The name's Erasmus Ehinger, and I was just wondering if my friends and I could book a few rooms? If you can spare them, that is."

Meanwhile, the skunkettes were trying not to return the occassional odd glance from the locals, Skye was grimacing at just as many rude stares, and Tijana was just seemingly not bothered.

[Parina]

The hotel was a large, modern building, and the lobby was quite large, with an ornate chandelier and several comfortable chairs and sofas.

The receptionist looked up from her game of computer solitaire. "Yes, we have some rooms available. How many do you need?" She noticed the furries in the background, but gave it no serious thought. The modern hotels knew there were prominent furries in the world, and no one wanted to piss on off by hiring anti-furry receptionists.

[Anthro Peoples]

IC:

Erasmus looked back at his travel companions. The sisters could share a room no problem, like they did back at Damvergi. Tijana would probably want her own room and pay for it in her own money, which meant...

"Guys," he said, turning back to the others. "Four rooms may be a bit expensive. Sky, would you be willing to share one with me? We all brought sleeping backs, so I can sleep on the room's floor, and let you have the bed."

"You can always sleep with me," Tijana said before Skye could answer, tone suggesting that she knew exactly what that sounded like. Skye blushed and Erasmus choked as Kunigonde and Odilia giggled a bit at the exchange.

"Ah, well, Colonel," Raz began. "I wouldn't want to disturb you, so..."

"Nonsense, lad," she interrupted. "I could use the company...and I don't mind sharing a bed, or I can sleep on the floor, which is a step above muddy fields."

"Ah," the young college student answered. "Well, then..."

He turned back to the receptionist.

"Three rooms, if you please."

[Parina]

The receptionist nodded, not listening to their conversation. "Three rooms. Hold on..." she looked through her records. "Yes we have three spare rooms. Rooms 12, 17, and 3, on the next floor." She handed Erasmus the keys.

The rooms each had two large beds, suitable for two persons to each bed, a bathroom, a large TV, a closet and a small mini-fridge with some complimentary water bottles. The TV didn't get many channels-there were only eight, as Parina had a very small market for television. The radio had for more content to choose from, most of it music stations, news or talk shows. The big news was the recent failure of a bill in Parliament which would have given all immigrants the ability to register to vote, instead of just the ones who's families had been in Parina a certain time.

Meanwhile, after the group left the lobby a nondescript man walked up to the receptionist. After handing over a considerable sum of money, he obtained the room numbers of group and a spare set of keys for each room.

That night, a group of men dressed in all black entered the hotel through the freight entrance. They were armed with silenced pistols, and their intent was to kidnap the human girl that had arrived with the furries and sell her on the semi-legal underground slave market.

They found the rooms and spread out, two covering the door of the room containing the skunk twins, two covering the room where the lioness and Erasmus were sleeping, and four going for their target.

They opened the door to Skye's room with the spare key, and one got out a cloth and some chloroform. The other three swept the room for anyone else, and, finding none, simply covered Skye with their pistols in case she awoke.

The fourth guard poured the chloroform onto the rag, crept up to Skye's side, and put the rag over her mouth and nose. The chloroform would render her unconscious shortly after Skye breathed in.

Meanwhile, the two men outside Tijana and Erasmus' room had decided to rob them while they were asleep, so they opened the door with their key and walked in, covering the sleeping furry and the man with their guns while they rummaged through their things not too quietly.