The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ic=An Exegesis of Scrap-Metal & Mangled Skin]Shrouded by shadows, you watch them.  

A pair of syndicate punks, with brazen tattoos still raw and glistening, search the antelucan gloom. They squint their slanted eyes, their callow faces naked save for the gleam of sweat. The taller of the two, a lanky-limbed youth with a brass-knuckle crudely sutured to his hand, whispers to his shorter companion, "It's looking for us, isn't it?" In reply, his companion merely shrugs, rubs his shaven scalp, and draws a bottle of cheap liquor. Uncorking it with a vestigial arm of chased spelter and sputtering clockwork, the stout thug takes a swig, then passes it to his spindly peer. As they sip the sickly-sweet brandy, you catch a flash of golden teeth. Repoussé Boys.

Beside you, Vex yawns in boredom, and slinks away to torment a pox-marked tabby slumbering in an adjacent alley. Stifling a curse at the irksome hellhound, you step out of the shadows and approach the Brass Skull thugs from behind. As you advance, the lanky one almost gags at the necrotic miasma and rancid halitosis that precedes you. Spinning around, the stouter thug visibly relaxes as he sees your trademark tricorn, black mask, and achromatic garb. His companion, however, continues to goggle you, his nervous eyes lingering on your scarred hands. Instinctively, you fold them neatly behind your back, and break the silence:

"It doesn't know where else to turn, so it looks for us in dark allies."

"Are y-you Mr. Nix?" the brass-knuckled youth asks, his Alleyspeak-accented voice slurred with false bravado and burnt wine.  

"It can call us that if it wants."

The stout thug, eyeing his companion with a mix of disgust and pity, turns back to you and says, "I have a job for you."

You answer, "We know."

While the taller youth's eyes widen, the stout thug just grins, then replies:

"Of course you do. Otherwise, the Brass Skulls wouldn't be asking."

Rubbing his scalp once more, he looks down at his totenkopf-buckled shoes, then continues:

"See, a couple of sods from Black Souse have gone missing during the past fortnight. Normally, we wouldn't care, but a few of them are kin to some good payin' clients in the Copper Ward.  After some digging, it seems the sods were all pinched in the dead of night. Me and some other boys from the local Mandible Clubs have since upped our night-strolls, thinking that it might be the Nine-Eyes or another syndicate starting trouble, but, well, the Boss ain't so sure, especially after last night..."

Looking up at his companion, he nods at the large, red-stained knapsack the youth has been carrying the entire time. In response, the youth unties the sullied silk, displaying a jumble of mangled, half-rusted metal and tattered skin-flaps. Still uneasy in your presence, he cautiously places the grisly bundle at your feet.

"That's all we could salvage. It was half-past the eleventh chime when Yomi and I were patrolling two-streets down from Swinehowl, and we heard this strange shuffling, a wet dragging noise with a rattle and creak of chains. We tried to follow it, but we lost it near the 'Salvers. Then, just as a patch of smog parted, Yomi saw something framed by the moonlight, atop a nearby roof. It wasn't quite man-shaped, she said, maybe a bit bigger. It was hard to tell, as it seemed hunched over, with limbs that didn't quite match. I never saw it myself, see, cause as Yomi called my name, it went to bolt. But Yomi was quicker, she shot it clean with her bastard. The blast knocked it right off the roof though. This is all we could gather –there was a lot of gore and junk that we couldn't scoop up, not least without risking the Watch. Boss wasn't too happy with that."

"Might not be related to the disappearances, but I'm thinking different. See, some of the other Boys said the neighbors of the missing folk reported hearing similar sounds –wet gurgling, almost like snorting, mixed with the jangle of chains- on the night of the vanishings. At first, we just thought the sods were blowing smoke or strung out on juice. But after Yomi and I heard the same thing, well, I figure the two are connected.  Boss agrees too, and after he saw the strange carvings on what we salvaged, he says that it's witchwork. Your kind."

"He's willing to pay, of course. He wants to know what it is, and where it came from. Says he'll let you slide on next month's rent, maybe two.  Also said there's some real chit if you actually fix the problem, either by returning the pinched kin or handing over the cutter who's responsible."

Glancing at the gory jumble one last time, the thug offers his bottle and asks with a gold-toothed grin:

"Do we have a deal?"[/ic]

[ooc]Ok, SH, tis your go. Mr. Nix knows the second thug as a syndicate punk named Shiqq. He regularly collects Mr. Nix's 'rent' and belongs to a local Mandible Club in the Ebon Ward, a place where other Repoussé Boys and lesser guttersnipes scrap and swagger to earn the favor and attention of the Brass Skull higher-ups. The Club, known as the Sutured Cabaret or more simply as the Scabaret, is led by a Brass Skull underboss named Yves, a retired illicit pitfighter known for his flatulence, affinity for head cheese, and four mechanical arms sutured to his torso, earning him the moniker of the Aerugo Attercop. [/ooc]

[ic]Mr. Nix stands in a still, enigmatic silence, allowing the breaths to lengthen before he makes any move.  His eyes glaze over as he recedes into his thoughts.   A beast stalks the night, slouching along rooftops.  Slimy.  Chains dragging.  Something about it echoes in his mind, like a half-remembered dream.  He can almost see it in his mind, but the image is indistinct; a ghastly silhouette.  It comes for them.  Will it come for us next? 

"It comes, but it won't take us, will it love?"

Mr. Nix hardly registers the perplexed looks on the faces of the two Brass Skulls thugs.  He was not speaking to them.  They are of no importance, just pawns, like the rest, in the machinations of the overlords.  It was their game that concerned him.  Says he'll let you slide on next month's rent, maybe two.  As if they'd make it that easy. 

The young, lanky one stifles a shriek as the cracked nose and bony form of a hellhound brushes past, its nonchalant growl a rumble in its throat.  Mr. Nix frowns.

"It wants to get rid of us, doesn't it?"
"W-w-what?"
"W-w-what!" Nix sprays the boy with flecks of spittle as he mocks him.  "It comes here to put us in front of it, and it says WHAT?!!"

Vex croons out in the groaning, growling tones of Hellspeak.  "Patience master."
"SPEAK NOT OF PATIENCE, FIEND!"
The ghul kicks at the dog as he shrieks.  The familiar yelps and slinks away, sniffing at the syndicate thugs before speaking again.
"We don't know its game.  If it's a danger to them, maybe a danger to us too..."
"Coming for us.  Did...He...send it?"
"It hides from us.  Seek it out."
"Walk into the mouth of Hell, it would like that, wouldn't it.  What's in it for us?"  In the last sentence, Mr. Nix slips back into Shambles.  Shiqq seems about to respond, when Mr. Nix violently presses a scarred and claw-tipped finger to his lips.  "SHHHHH!!!"  He looks round.  It's here, isn't it?  Listening.  His perfect night vision reveals no beasts, but the ghul witch can't help but feel they are being watched.  Silent as the grave, he scoops up the bundle of metal and flesh and motions for them to follow.  Vex takes point, running ahead as they lead the thugs through a series of alleys until he slips through the door to a derelict building.

"Wait, this isn't..." says Shiqq, and Mr. Nix clamps his hand down over the man's mouth.  Vex scouts the room just inside, then Nix leads the men in.

"Vex.  Keep watch" he orders, and quickly, but quietly shuts the door.  The Hellhound won't control what happens next.  He pulls out a piece of chalk and scribes a few sigils on the floor around the bundle.  He chants in hellspeak, drawing a circled around the lot, then with his wavy knife, slices open the air, and the room fills up with the sulfurous, choking haze of brimstone.

"Err..." mutters the youth. "What's he doing, Shiqq?"
"Calling on his demons."
"I don't want to meet no demons!"
"Relax, boy."  He addresses Mr. Nix.  "So we have a deal, then."

Mr. Nix just waves his hand in a dismissive gesture.  Yes, We'll do it.  But not because of two months' rent.  Something is out there, and we need to know what it is.  [/ic]
[ooc]Mr. Nix is using Emonomancy to try and figure out as much about the flesh and scrap metal Yomi shot off of this creature.  When the ritual is over, he will give them to Vex to sniff, and keep them around in case he needs to refresh them.  He hopes Vex will be able to help him track this not-quite-a-man.[/ooc]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

[ic]Shapes form in the quivering haze, a monstrous shadow congealing into a many-eyed grotesquerie with slavering tongues of fire and frenetic, chiropteran wings. Fang-rimmed orifices open, discharging eye-stinging effluvia and skin-bristling moans. For a brief moment, the thing test the circle, buffeting the smoke-veiled boundaries with its flickering tongues, spastic wings, and horrendous screams. But its prison holds.

Trapped alongside the fiend, the syndicate punks tremble. Unable to contain his fear, the younger thug cries out in terror and tries to bolt -but is fortunately yanked by Shiqq's spelterwork arm before he can break the eldritch lines. The two nonetheless huddle behind the sanity-strained ghul, their fear-sweat mingling with the reek of sulphur.

Tasting their fright, the demon moans with gluttonous ecstasy. Its orifices ripple and flush with morbid delight. So mollified, it temporarily forgets its rage at being conjured, and turns its panoply of eyes towards its nightfolk gaoler.

"You seek the sagacity of Pruflas-Shezbeth," the fiend hisses in Hellspeak, its tone declaiming a truth rather than query.

"Very well, husk, we shall spare our wisdom -though only a pittance is needed to satisfy your meager mind."

Closing its variegated eyes, Pruflas-Shezbeth shudders momentarily, then vomits a burning coal from its gullet. It catches the infernal bezoar in its flickering tongues, then suddenly pries open Mr. Nix's mouth and shoves the coal inside, singing the grave-spawn's tongue. Yet, as the scent of smoldering corpse-flesh fills the air, alien images, sounds, and insights sear Mr. Nix's consciousness in a blinding thoughtographic slurry.

Having fulfilled the strictures of its binding, Pruflas-Shezbeth gives a final, cacophonous groan, then melts back into the brimestone smog, causing the vapors to congeal into a greasy, sulphuric rain.

Caught in the fleeting, yet still sickening, shower, the Repoussé Boys swallow back their rising gorge. They stagger a bit, then steady each other as reality once again reasserts itself in the absence of hellish incursions. Both nevertheless retain the presence of mind to quietly await the ghul's response.[/ic]

[ooc]Mr. Nix learns a number of potentially helpful information from his emonomancy, including an understanding that the sigils are of infernal, rather than mortal, design, but were executed by the hand of a grave-spawn. The flesh comes from two recently slain humans, a man known as Nian and woman known as Virdal. The metal comes from the Flensery, an abandoned slaughterhouse at the heart of Black Souse, a rundown section of the Ebon Ward that straddles its border with the Copper Ward.

The imprinted knowledge also awakens a host of other insights -though whether they are demon-spawned or the product of his past life's memories unclear. Regardless, Mr. Nix recalls that Black Souse was once known as Black-Souse Burnish. An artificer named Rel-Shan, taking advantage of an abattoir fire, rebuilt the slaughterhouse with the financial aid of the Phan-Laru family, fashioned it so that the polished black-iron factory was almost completely automated. Although Rel-Shan considered his Flensery a monument to progress and industry, the former workers of the slaughterhouse did not share his glowing sentiment. It was not long before the unemployed denizens formed a mob, descended upon the Flensery, and allegedly murdered Rel-Shan and broke his still-burnished machinery.

Although the incident understandably enraged House Phan-Laru and other merchants and nobles, there was little that could be done, as the mob was too numerous, too anonymous to fully prosecute, although a few presumed rabble-rousers were executed to placate the Phan-Laru. Merchants and nobles nonetheless avoided the area, refusing to do business in the region, rendering it a place of extreme poverty. As time passed, the buildings succumbed to rust, especially as massive sewer-vents were built to spew toxic steam-vapors away precious Copper Ward factories. It was not long then before citizens replaced the area's official moniker of the Burnish with the pejorative title of the Tarnish. Now, the Black Souse, and the Flensery which sits at the heart of the Tarnish, remains all-but abandoned, a rust-ridden ruin inhabited by drug-addicts, diseased vagabonds, and other destitute or deranged souls.

Also, note that you take 1 point of damage to your Intellect Pool from using the esotery. If you, and other players, can keep a running log of your pools, I'd be appreciative.  Also, if you wish for Vex to attempt to track something, you'll need to roll. [/ooc]

[ic=Child's Play]Twilight sleeps restlessly upon the Saffron Ward. Shadows yawn as the gloaming hour gives way to dawn, rousing the district's manifold boutiques, cafes, theatres, and opera houses with languid sunlight. Snicket-sweepers maneuver the waning penumbra, meticulously harvesting the prior evening's excess. They prepare the ward's manicured labyrinth of promenades, lesser avenues, and countless alleys for the morning rush of shopkeepers and servants, who in turn ready their various businesses to snare the fancy –and coins- of masked nobility and lesser merchants.

Disguised as one of these snicket-sweepers, Xavier walks unnoticed by the tabernarious crowd. He surveys a nearby street and its various establishments with his ice-blue eye, scrutinizing the street's myriad details.

Paedarchs' Boulevarde. Connected to a larger avenue lined with fragrant persimmon trees, Paedarchs' Boulevarde is the product of technolatry, a playground of boutiques specifically catering to child clientele –or more precisely the permissive, affluent parents who spoil them. Painted by dawn's blush, the Boulevarde's shops proudly proclaim their monikers and hint at their costly merchandise.

The Scutestage Drollic. A massive chelonian shell imported from Marainein whose hollowed interior houses a troupe of black-furred zerda who perform elaborate shadow-puppetry under the direction of Yağmur Sahif, better known as Messeuir Marionette, a dark-skinned Erebh expatriate who pretends he's a shade, complete with pitch-black fez, cassock, parasol, and shadeglass spectacles.

Phengge's Emporium of Confectionaries, Candies, & Childish Delights. Known for its prolix candy presses and the eponymous Phengge, with her sweetmeat-speckled hoopskirt and sugar-powdered periwig.

Amorce. Whose wheellock cap-pistols and elaborate toy flare-guns fill the air with perfumed smoke and percussive symphonies, each lovingly crafted by Qishen, the alleged bastard and apprentice of the famed Val Corvan.

The Prescite Palm. A palmistry shop run by the eyeblight-infected Madame Volar, whose chirosophic arts and veiled legerdemain captivate young and old alike.

The Auturgic Circus. A clockwork toyshop selling trinkets, baubles, and gewgaws made by an unseen sweatshop of mantid tinkerers who answer to Ringmaster Serell, known for his toy train that winds around his top-hat's brim, his handlebar mustache greased with ever-buzzing aerugo-flies, and his organ-grinding monkey of argent manufacture.

Tragematopolis. A confectionary run by the witch-spinster Hortense whose hexed candies, ensorcelled alphenics, and bitter rivalry with Phengge are a legend of the Boulevarde.

The Moth-Prince Menagerie. Run by Sogni, a pygmy thremmatologist from the Collegia Vlerinn-Phoi, who sells miniature animals, bred like bonsai trees for the fancy of petulant, if prosperous, jackanapes.

Opposite such opulent businesses, an enormous mural frames the Boulevarde. Its pastel hues depict a chimerical representation of the Fevered Ocean, complete with sirae sailing cloud-ships over iridescent seas formed of rippling silk-bolts, magisters sauntering across beaches of golden coins, and children flying xsurs like giant kites with ribbon-tied tails. Allegedly commissioned or crafted by the Mad Magister himself, the mural is the source of the Boulevarde's other titles: Orlando's Stroll and the Febrile Esplanade.

Considering each of these spectacles, Xavier's attention nonetheless lingers on a particular establishment: the Phalerate Dollhouse. A fluted fence encloses its manicured yard, where a posy-festooned path leads to a garishly bright building. Its facade has been meticulously painted to resemble a child's doll-house, while an exquisitely gilded placard announces the boutique's name, complete with dolls smiling and cavorting all around the lettering. A triptych of windows displays festive scenes, in which dozens of dolls play leap-frog, hide-and-seek, and peek-a-boo, each clad in its own unique apparel of ruffled lace, dyed silk, and embroidered velour.

Such merchandise, however, does not hold Xavier's interest for very long. He has not come to Paedarchs' Boulevarde or the Phalerate Dollhouse to shop. Another sort of business has summoned him. For besides its celadon-faced dolls and delicate, diminutive dresses, the Dollhouse is home to Xavier's mark: the doll-maker Tsin-Leirre.[/ic]

[ooc]Before dusk banished the previous day, Xavier was summoned by his Brass Skull superior, Boss Xann-Carlu, better known as the Niello Mongrel. Xann-Carlu related that a member of the Annealed Brethren, a clandestine group of merchants allied with the syndicate, requested Xavier specifically to arrange an 'accident' for Tsin-Leirre. Evidently, the merchant's daughter was killed in a botched abduction. Although the would-be kidnappers were all slain, the merchant also blames Tsin-Leirre, as his daughter's doll, purchased from the Dollhouse, did not properly activate as intended, failing to release its noxious fumes that otherwise may have delayed her attackers and allowed her to escape. Although the doll-maker was acquitted after a all-too swift trial, the undisclosed merchant has nonetheless requested the Brass Skulls bring Tsin-Leirre to 'justice'. Beyond wanting the doll-maker's death to look like an accident, the merchant has one additional, complicating request: he demands that Tsin-Leirre dies by the day's end, as today is his daughter's birthday –and thus the assassination is intended as an anniversarial, if morbid, gift.  

Beyond any other actions, roll that disguise check for me please. You've had about an hour to case the street, with it being about half-past 3rd Chime (approximately 7 am). Also, should it matter, the Dollhouse is between the Auturgic Circus and Tragematopolis. [/ooc]

[ic=The Wages of Sin]Inside the Gravid Boudoir, the heady aromas of asherat, opium, and quarinah permeate the pleasure-den, staining the lacquered walls and low ceiling with a smoky veneer. A swarm of tangled bodies sprawls across a sea of aporrhea-slick cushions, their owners inhaling psychotropic vapors from complex hookahs or elaborate pipes of brass and bamboo. Curtained alcoves line the sides of the room, and flickering lights show that Smoulder and Cerulean Bliss are being enjoyed in these as well, though some grunts and moans suggest other pleasures are also being sampled. A few urchins, their faces painted like lapis moons, wander through the den. They delicately step over and around the maze of addled flesh, collecting coins in return for small blocks or bundles ready to be lit, tending porcelain drug-lamps, and checking the breathing of the most besotted patrons with small mirrors of polished brass. At the far end of the room, an obese man with hangdog ears and beady eyes sits on a protesting stool, a glyph-scribed crossbow resting lazily in his prodigious lap. He wears clothes that might have been finery before they too became stained with smoke and neglect. Behind him, a curtain of strung scrimshaw and glass-spun beads sways, suggestively revealing another chamber filled with unnamed diversions and delights.  

Emerging from this half-veiled chamber, a handsome young man in silken clothes enters the den, a perfumed handkerchief pressed to his powdered face. Ignored by the flaccid, glazed-eyed guard, the handsome popinjay scans the room and sprawl of bodies. Spotting the object of his inquiry amidst the mass, he gingerly threads his sandaled feet across the floor. He clears his throat as he approaches and speaks with a melodious voice. "If it pleases, my mistress desires to speak on a matter of dire importance and potential profit."

Not receiving any answer save for a soporific snort, the fop frowns momentarily, draws a thin whistle of hex-marked bone, and blows thrice. Although no audible sound escapes the instrument, it is not long before a tall skin-stitched servitor emerges. Dressed in mildewed raiment, the corpse shambles over to the powdered courtesan. With a curt gesture, the fop commands the servitor to carry the still-sleeping Phrixia, which it does so unceremoniously, rousing the dark-skinned rogue in the process. Ignoring the erstwhile corsair's complaints and curses, the courtesan merely repeats his earlier statement:

"If it pleases, my mistress desires to speak on a matter of dire importance and potential profit."

Meanwhile, the servitor retains its hold on Phrixia, escorting her out of the Gravid Boudoir, out into the morning fog, down the pleasure-pier, and into a mildew-stained steamboat. Despite her furious attempts, Phrixia cannot escape the servitor's iron-sinewed grip.

And then, as abruptly as the incident began, the servitor drops Phrixia down a chute, causing her to spill down its riveted expanse. Reflexively tumbling to her feet, Phrixia dusts off her brigandine, confirms that all her gear is present and intact, and surveys her surroundings.

The air here is thick with clouds of steam, scented with cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and stranger spices. Bizarre plants hang entwined from the condensation-dripping ceiling, fronds of thick yellow, vines of enormous bulbs, and flowers bulging with glistening stamen. Two huge iron stoves, bolted to the floor and walls, belt out great heat into the room, which is dominated by a greenish pool. From the look of its steamy, scum-rippling surface, the waters must by very warm. A heavy desk sits against the edge of the pool, its surface cluttered with papers, wicker plates of gutted fish, cobwebbed bottles, a gold waterpipe, and an elaborate puzzle-box of aged ivory.

Seated beside the cluttered escritoire is a piscine woman, with squamous skin a glistening mottle of azure and indigo. Fin-like ears sprout from an ovoid head that tapers into a ridged pair of operculum head-flaps. Vermillion-hued eyebrows flutter and pulse like external gills. Her eyes are sallow, phlegmy orbs, and her nostrils are slimy orifices. She wears a massive hoopskirt with ruffled silk dyed to match her skin and a tight corset of tooled leechskin that brazenly displays her décolletage. A large, orichalum pocketwatch hangs from her neck like a pendant, while a pair of petite stilettos peek out from the ruched hem of her dress. There is a practiced, haughty mannerism to her ichthyic features and movements, but Phrixia also notices a hidden fatigue and trepidation.

"Greetings, Lady Gronne," the cerulean fish-woman says in Glatch-accented Shambles that nearly mirrors Phrixia's dialect, "I am so pleased you accepted my invitation."

"I am Madame Zamorra. While you may have heard of me, I have definitely heard of you. You see, I own these docks, from the pleasure-dens you relish to the boarding house you call home. You are a good customer, and I make it a point to know my customers, especially those with peculiar appetites and particular talents. And you, my Lady Gronne, have both. It is of the latter I hope to utilize, and the former I hope to sate in recompense."

As if to illustrate her point, Madame Zamorra turns and tosses a bottle to Phrixia. Effortlessly catching it, the olive-eyed woman wipes away the moisture-slick cobwebs, and tries to read the faded label.

"Madwine culled from Red Edward's cellar," Madame Zamorra offers, adding, "352 C.R., an old and excellent vintage."

Waving a webbed hand in the direction of a nearby chair, she continues:

"Recently, a number of my employees have taken ill. The disease is unfamiliar to me, and I fear, quite contagious. Moreover, its symptoms are insidious, lying dormant for days before they begin to manifest in full –symptoms that can be quite gruesome, and I daresay deadly. I consulted with an esteemed iatrochymist from the Collegia; he confirmed that the disease is venereal, communicable, and without a known cure. I paid him a hefty sum to discover said knowledge, and an even greater amount to purchase his silence on said discoveries. If word spreads that my workers are tainted with a presently incurable plague, it would doom my business. I am already suffering loses as more and more of my workers succumb to the illness. Thus far, most have only shown the slightest of symptoms, but we could have an epidemic on our hands if we do not act swiftly. My patrons, as you know, are not picky, and could easily spread the plague beyond these docks, throughout the ward, the city, and even to other ports. And this is why I need your help."

"You see, I believe I have located the source of the sickness. After the chymist identified the plague as resembling a rare phage found in the Rancid Barrens, I realized that my workers became ill a few days after they entertained a large party of expatriates from Marainein. These exiles, who call themselves the Communion of Cagastric Rapture, are likely carriers of the disease. After first sending several missives that went unanswered and then messengers that went outright missing, I am increasingly convinced that the Communion is not only responsible, but knowingly so. Consequently, I need someone able and willing to visit the Communion and make them answer for their deeds. Hopefully, with proper persuasion, they might reveal a cure or willingly submit to an examination by my associate at the Collegia. Or, if such methods fail, a proper number of their corpses might allow my associate to derive a vaccine. Either way, time is not our ally."

"As I said earlier, Lady Gronne, I am more than willing to pay you for your services; all I require is swift and decisive action. Based upon my reports, the Communion are holed up in a derelict slave galley called the Varegous Idol, in a southerly region of the ward known as Hullsgrave. Assuming you accept, I suggest you charter passage on a vessel heading down the Radula to speed your travel. I will cover such expenses, of course, and more for successfully resolving this matter."[/ic]

[ooc]Although this is the first time you have seen Madame Zamorra, you have heard of her. Behind her back, she's more commonly known as Beldame Mouldegill. Zamorra is an oddity, with a circus of rumors surrounding her origins. Some claim she is a spawn of the Southern Swamps warped by an Utterance of the Beast-Gods. Others say she is a liberated mere-creature from the Lesion Sea, or is a hideous product of Macellarian fleshwork, or the cursed result of Slow Plague. Regardless of her origins, she controls a major pleasure-pier in the Indigo Ward. Although her inhuman nature makes her despised by most of Skein's xenophobic citizens, her fortunes are predicated upon her business acumen, her special blend of quarinah, asherat, rare fish oils & blue-green algae (a product called Cerulean Bliss), and her practice of harboring and caring for pregnant prostitutes from the Violet Ward (she allegedly sells the children to foreign slavers and has the post-partum prostitutes work as indentured servants until they repay the debts they accrued during their pregnancies). Of the Communion, you nothing more than what Zamorra has just told you.[/ooc]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

[ic]
Xavier proceeds to sweep the alleys betwixt the dollhouse and it's neighbouring buildings, keeping up his assumed persona. In fact he is looking for any potential side entrances into the doll-maker's shop: anything from actual backdoors to windows and balconies, or even hatches for waste disposal. Going in the front entrance is something he'd rather not risk, especially if he'll have to do so in the light of day. Thrice-damned merchant and his sense for poetic justice, he muses. This gig would be so much easier after dark. The time limit imposed by the contractee, if anything, is what's made this job challenging. Normally Xavier would take his time, perhaps even several days, to gather intel and plan ahead before moving in for the kill, but today he has no such luxury. A hasty hit means much greater chance of something going awry, particularly when it comes to making the death appear a convincing accident. He starts to consider various alternative approaches whilst continuing to pick up junk.

The doll-maker could fall victim to his own fumes. A little "mishap" in the workshop... that would be both ironic and appropriately inconspicuous. Or perhaps a machine malfunction with fatally injurious consequences? Then there's always fire. Though burning down the dollhouse would attract a lot of attention, not to mention the fire brigade. Although he finds imagining the potential scenarios in his mind's eye both amusing and intriguing, Xavier takes care to keep his exhilaration concealed. He maintains a bored frown on his face, his shoulders slumped, with a cheap hand-rolled cigarette listlessly smoldering between his lips -- a typically wretched mien for a lowly snicket-sweeper. Before anything else though, I'll need that way in.
[/ic]

[ooc]Roll a sight-based Perception check for Xavier please. [/ooc]

[ic=Sanguine Lottery]Dawn creeps across the Clockwork City. Its bloody radiance baptizes the countless armories, gunsmithies, and arms-dealers of the Crimson Ward.

Emerging from the scarlet affusion, a cadre of mercenaries gathers at the headquarters of the Night-Marrow Merchant Company. Nestled inside the Ossein Court, the pillared edifice looms over its neighbors. Shadows and sulphurous vapors cavort across the structure's ichnite-embedded limestone, stained-glass oculi, and bronzed statuaries of leering marrowgaunts and sword-swallowing justicars. One by one, the sellswords present their punch-card invitations to the massive, axe-wielding automata at the filigreed gate. One by one, they are admitted, then escorted through the mercantile hive, past armies of clerks, and into a spacious, but swiftly crowded, parlour.

Crushed-velvet curtains conceal a row of mullioned windows, their charcoal-hued cloth defying dawn's would-be voyeurism. The chamber is nevertheless awash with light, provided by a trio of quartz-cut chandeliers. Highlighted by the amber illumination, the north wall is lined with an impressive, if macabre, display of execution paraphernalia. Maiden swords, nooses, breaking wheels, gibbets, and even an elaborate guillotine are accompanied by placarded bell-jars. Inside the display glasses, unsettlingly realistic wax-model heads immortalize the final visage for each of the paraphernalia's victims. The south wall hosts an equally gruesome decoration: the taxidermied corpse of a fang-trunked beast, equal parts pachyderm and cave-bear. Between these morbid ornamentations, a magnificent table of petrified wood and snake-skin dominates the little floor-space not claimed by the standing assembly of mercenaries.  

Seated at the table is a wiry, well-coiffed youth, dressed in a nobleman's finery and a bronze half-mask that resembles a fettergeist's face. Attached to the youth by a silver leash, a diaphanous winged, pustule-bearded toad squats atop the table. Its five eyes nakedly glare at the dirt and disreputable dress of the present sellswords. Oblivious to the demon's sanctimonious gaze, the young magister nurses a glass of expensive sherry. His hand trembles gently as he sips the fortified wine. Despite his mask, his facial expressions and darting eyes betray that something disturbs his peace, something beyond the throng of murderers-for-hire overcrowding his parlour. Pensively, he glances back at the servant behind him, a stout, thick-necked woman dressed in the garb of a man.

She wears a muslin veil, tricorne hat, liveried frockcoat, and greased pony-tail. An ur-fossil sabre and a hex-scribed pepperbox hang at her side, while a voltaic-charged tipstave rests in her yellow-gloved hand. Although her maroon, mirthless eyes remain locked on the mercenaries, she reassures her patron with a firm nod.

Apparently mollified, the youth sighs, sets down his glass –which the demon greedily finishes off- and rises from the table.

"Very well, Guin," he says in well-mannered Hellspeak, "I leave things in your capable hands."

"Thank you, my lord," the sinewy woman replies with a sharp bow, "I shall see it done."
While his servant curtly motions for the crowd to part, the magister brings his wine-slavering fiend to heel, then ambles out the room. A pair of liveried automata closes the mascaroned doors behind him.  

"Right then," the wide-faced woman barks in accented Shambles, "You are here for coin."

"The Night-Marrow Merchant Company, on behalf of his young lordship, Elphias Rasch-Lurot, has authorized me to award three thousand crowns for the safe return of his maternal uncle, one Xalmas Rasch."

"There are, however, certain stipulations, to the offer. First, you cannot have any active warrant or bond-price on your head. Second, you cannot have any extant contract with any of the syndicates. Past contract work is permissible; only current obligations are prohibited. Third, you must be willing to sign a notarized contract with me, rather than the company or his lordship. Fourth, while that contract is in effect, you must forgo taking on any additional contracts, whether as a bounty hunter, bodyguard, or work of similar nature. In sum, I am looking for someone who can devote his or her full attention to the task, and thus complete it with the utmost of immediacy."

"If you do not meet those specifications, you are dismissed."

Grumbles ripple through the crowd. The woman's grim demeanor, however, halts any challenge or request for clarification. Many nonetheless mumble at their time being wasted. Even more leave. Among them, Sharp Jasper spits out a smoke ring from his nacarat beard and storms off with a trail of expletive-spelling cigarette-smoke. Others, like slant-eyed Xar-Qay and tattooed Usha, depart with less fanfare. The former, in fact, gives a slight bow that Guin reciprocates.

In the wake of such departures, the once-overcrowded room is left with just a half-dozen sellswords.

Looking over the remaining mercenaries, Guin continues, "By you continued attendance, all of you are manifesting that you agree to the above conditions."

"And-," she adds with severe emphasis, "-are prepared to sign an ensorcelled contract that will both establish and enforce said stipulations."

At those words and implied warning, two pimpled-faced sellswords exchange a worried glance, then wordlessly slink out of the room.

At their exit, Guin approaches the remaining four. She eyes each in turn, appraising their stature, stance, and arms.

"State your names."

The first to answer is a tall, slant-eyed man wearing manskin chaps, a sweat-stained handkerchief drawn over his mouth, and the pelt of a tentacle-wolf. He carries a variety of manacles, a large skinning knife, and an aged blunderbuss whose flared barrel resembles a vomiting gorgefly. Teeth, of various beasts and men, are tied to his oil-black hair, and a scar-thin goatee hangs from his slender chin.

With an accent that marks him as a native of Mulcatra or Shoi-Tann rather than Skein proper, he answers in Hellspeak, "Tarpaulin Tlex, fastest trigger this side of the Radula."

"Indeed," Guin flatly replies.  

"And you?" she asks, stepping up to a hunchbacked ghul. Clothed in patchwork rags and a gauzy veil that dangles from a rickety straw hat, the female grave-spawn reflexively tenses her prodigious, scab-laced muscles. Slow to answer, the ghul eventually looks up with urine-hued eyes, straightens her tortuous spine, and reveals a vestigial head that hangs lifelessly between her breasts.

"They calls usss the Ossifragant."

Slightly raising an eyebrow, Guin sidesteps the disfigured nightfolk and continues her inspection.

"Name," she demands.  

"Catena."

Guin nods with what might be construed as approval, then steps up to the last sellsword.

A comparatively slight man of pale complexion and murine nose, the last mercenary squirms nervously under Guin's gaze. Jade-tinted spectacles, a broad-brimmed hat, and a charmeuse tunic conceal eyes, hair, and a tangle of tattoos that share the same dark-red hue. He bears a fraying lynch around his neck like a morbid necktie and a single-shot pistol at his side, but is otherwise unarmed.

"Jarrow Slake, ma'am."

"You have tattoos," Guin states with a disapproving eye.

"Y-yes, ma'am," Jarrow answers.

"But you aren't tied to a syndicate."

"No, ma'am."

"Good."

Stepping away from the group, Guin motions to a pair of liveried manservants who begin to roll up the room's brass-stitched rug with immaculate efficiency.

"There's one last stipulation," Guin says, her back turned to the sellswords. "The contract will only be extended to one of you. You have five minutes to settle amongst yourselves who will get it."

In response to the nigh-instantaneous cocking of Tlex's firearm, Guin nonchalantly adds, "No gunshots inside, please."

"N-now, ladies and gent," Jarrow sputters with palms extended, "I'm sure there's a way we can resolve this, w-without resorting to violence. Why, we could flip a coin, play a hand of cards, or draw lots to determi-"

The man's words are cut short, however, when the Ossifragant lunges at him and slashes his throat with her serrated claws.  As Jarrow crumples to the ground in a blood-foaming gurgle, the ghul just laughs:

"Lookss likes you lost the draw, s-ssmall man."[/ic]

[ooc]Make an initiative (Agility) roll, DC 2. If you succeed, you can take your turn without delay. All 3 sellswords are within an immediate distance.[/ooc]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

[ic]Mr. Nix stands in place for a long time, eyes shut and clawing that the air as if the information he has uncovered were in fact physical pieces of information to arrange and piece together.  He sorts through them piece by piece, arranging and rearranging them, muttering to himself, and quizically revolving in place with his eyes closed, dragging one leg around an anchoring axis point as if in some kind of bizarre dance.  Perhaps the Repousse Boys think he is working another spell, but in fact he is only thinking.  

His eyes snap open.  They are wide, in a mixture of determination, rage, fear, and perhaps several other emotions.  

"They are still here!" he shrieks, and charges them as if to attack, teeth and claws bared, then stops, an inch apart from the youth's face.  The boy flinches and squeals, then opens one eye.  "Who are they!?" Mr. Nix growls exhales breathily, and the youth crumples into a fit of coughing and sputtering.  

"You know who we are" asserts Shiqq. 

Abandoning the boy, Mr. Nix turns to Shiqq.  "Not here.  Gone.  All gone.  We need names...Get us their names.  All gone, does it see? We needs to know what it's up to..."

Shiqq grins at him, "Then you're agreeing."
"Yess....yesss." Mr. Nix waves him away again, then suddenly seems to change his mind.  "Come with us..."

Mr. Nix carefully wipes away any remaining chalk dust that might hint at what he was doing in here, and peeks out the door until he spots his hellhound.  Motioning for the others to follow, he calls to the familiar.  "Vex!  We're going."  He begins to wind his way through the streets of the Ebon Ward, weaving in among other Ghilan, with the syndicate thugs in tow.

Rel-Shan cuts automates the slaughterhouse.  The mob of unemployed workers slaughters him.  Now people from that same section of the Ward are disappearing, and Yomi shot a piece of rusted metal from the Flensery off of what took them.  Yomi shot off bits of Nian and Virdal too, and they're dead....

"Nix, where are we going?"
"It knows where we are going!" the Ghul accuses.  "Black-Souse Tarnish.  Shiqq must show us where it happened: where Yomi shot it.  It takes us there, then it goes.  It gets our names, and meets us at The Sutured Cabaret."[/ic]
[ooc]Once in the neighborhood, Mr. Nix and Vex will follow Shiqq to the spot where they encountered the creature...whatever it was.  Mr. Nix has a few theories already, and he doesn't like any of them.[/ooc]

Initiative:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

[ic]Shabby, dilapidated buildings mark Shiqq's path through the twilight-shrouded streets. As Mr. Nix and the others follow, they encounter a gang of hollering, offal-flinging guttersnipes. Fortunately for the diabolist's entourage, the urchins' fury is focused inward, as a pair of tattooed waifs circle one another with dirty shivs. So engrossed, the savage mob ignores the passing quartet. Pressing onward, Shiqq leads them through a claustrophobic alley, strewn with refuse, roaches, and drunken or drug-fogged runagates. Stepping over the fetid, moaning obstacle course, the group continues toward the Tarnish.

Crossing its threshold, the smell of rust, slag, and long-dead things assaults them. The drone of a million decay-gorging grease-flies mingles with an incessant whine, like that of a monstrous, off-key pipe-organ. Occasionally, the whine becomes a roar, as corroded vents and mottled valves belch steam-clouds into the bruise-purple sky. While the thinner fumes lazily rise toward cavernulous rooftops, the more ponderous gases crawl upon the ground, creating a choking haze that obscures the group's vision.

Overcome by the miasma, the younger thug gags, spewing bile and brandy unto the shrouded streets.  Vex happily laps up the vomit.

"Shut it, Tohno," Shiqq hisses, "Tarnish's no place to be caught with your teeth between your knees."

"M'm, s-sorry," he replies, half-retching.

Shaking his bristled scalp, Shiqq looks to Mr. Nix. "Kid just got his tooth last night."

Turning around to better orient himself, the three-armed tough continues, "Smog makes it hard to tell, but... I think the thing was on... that roof." He points to a four-story building with a heavily patched roof.

"Yeah-," he says, as if trying to convince himself, "-that's the one. I remember the hobnailed shingles –moon made 'em glitter like a magistra's brassiere."

Behind him, Tohno lurches. He feebly holds his stomach. He tries to steady himself, but his hand brushes a scalding pipe. His scream echoes strangely in the mist, followed by a stream of Baubo-worthy swears.

"Look, Nix-," Shiqq says without a mix of trepidation and annoyance, "-I've got to get the kid out of here. Tarnish air, it's no good for the quick. Especially now, after they flush the bloomeries."

As if punctuating his point, a subterranean gurgle shakes the ground, then erupts in a nearby gust of noxious fumes.

Stifling his own puke, Shiqq shuffles over to Tohno. Half-leading, half-dragging the curled-over thug, he shouts back:  

"I'll meet you at the club, Nix. I'll get those names."

The haze swiftly engulfs them.

At their departure, Vex looks up, licks the bile from its muzzle, and snickers:

"I like the lanky one. His emesis has an exquisite bouquet of freshly lost innocence, florid delusions, and blossoming regret. I remember when your's had the same tang. Ah, those were heady, delectable days, master."[/ic]

[ooc]I'm not sure your next course of action, but I'll wager it will include/require a perception check in the haze, which acts as a 1 step hindrance. Also, the vapors are poisonous, but your mastery reduces their DC to 0, so you are automatically unaffected. Vex's anatomy likewise renders it all but immune to such substances.[/ooc]

[ic]Between the Circus' bright brickwork and the Dollhouse's fluted fence, Xavier sees little options. The tight ally is secluded, but little means of ingress are observed, as both buildings lack inward facing windows, and only the Circus has a side-door.

On the Dollhouse's other side, the Tragematopolis rises, a thin building of chocolate-stained wood that smells of licorice, plums, and chimerical dreams. Although the Boulevarde's curvature makes the alley more visible to passers-by, Xavier does notice a side-door on the Dollhouse, painted-over and seemingly unused. The distance to the door and the alley is about a half-dozen paces, though a pair of chimneys might provide some concealment to a person standing at the painted-over threshold.

Behind the boutique, however, another option presents itself. A set of slanted basement doors, built directly into the sloped lawn, provides access to the Dollhouse's bowels. Compared to the Boulevarde and its side-alleys, this back snicket bustles with carts, wagons, and pedestrians carrying supplies to the various establishments that flank both sides of the street. Lacking their glittering facades, the buildings form a bland row, barren of windows, and broken only by the occasional back-door, loading station, or supply chute.

As Xavier inspects the Dollhouse's back-entrance from afar, a careless porter jostles the disguised assassin, knocking his cigarette with a large crate. The burqa-dressed worker, without stopping to apologize, hustles toward the Dollhouse, stops at its basement doors, and kicks the lintel thrice with his heel. As the porter waits for the doors to open, he readjusts his grip on the cumbersome crate. In doing so, his robe twists, momentarily revealing the outline of several blades. The doors, however, open, and a similarly robed woman peeks out, scans the street, then admits the porter and his cargo. As the wooden doors close, Xavier hears the distinct sliding of a heavy door-bolt.

Before Xavier can react to the scene, however, he hears someone shout behind him. He turns, and sees a Watchman, spearsword in hand, hustling towards him.

"You there, sweeper," the guard shouts, "Halt."[/ic]

[ooc]The guard is currently a short distance away from you, but closing. The guard, though insistent and perhaps upset, does not seem overtly hostile.[/ooc]

[ic]Mr. Nix watches Shiqq and Tohno go, until the putrescent haze envelops his erstwhile companions in a sheet of noxious vapor and they cease to be a part of his present reality.  Scanning for any other spies or loiterers, he unfurls the bundle of oxidized metal and rankening flesh, lowering it for Vex to sniff.  The hound licks at the flesh eagerly, and Nix kicks him.

"It isn't for eating!" he scolds.  "Not yet.  We needs to find it.  It was near here.  See if it can pick up a trail."

While Vex sniffs around amid the fumes, Mr. Nix begins searching around for a way up to the rooftop, or any signs of the creature's presence here.[/ic]

[ooc]Vex Tracking: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Mr. Nix Perception: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier groans and curses at the worker that bumps into him, feigning outrage but making no attempt to stop the man. He's more interested in maintaining his assumed persona, as well as observing the back entrance to the Dollhouse. His patience is rewarded as he witnesses the delivery of some obviously sensitive material, one that warrants an armed courier. Noting that the door is bolted from within, his hopes of gaining entry this way falter. I'd have to intercept one of those robed couriers, assuming more will be on their way today. Dispose of one quietly and use his attire to disquise myself as his likeness. That plan involves risks I'd rather avoid -- His thoughts are interrupted by the approaching watchman.

Xavier turns to regard the guard, quickly considering his options. Doesn't look like he sees much of a threat in me, else he'd be charging at me with serious intent. If I hightail it now that'll only confirm any suspicions he may have, and possibly alert the dollhouse staff. Better to play my role... for now.

"Oy? Whut's the matter, sirrah?" He growls in a weary, somewhat grumpy tone. His natural eye regards the guard with little more than mild interest.
[/ic]

[ic]At Xavier's reply, the guard slows his pursuit. His copper, conical hat shades his eye, but his scowl is all-too obvious as he trudges up:

"What's the matter?!"

He goes to cuff Xavier in his ear.

"It's past sunrise, drudge, so clear out!"

The guard gives Xavier another withering glare, goes to turn, then stops dead in his tracks. He stabs a finger at Xavier's chest, and demands with a rattle of his swordspear, "Where's your badge, sweeper?"

Hearing the guard's ire, some travelers slow or stop to watch what unfolds. Others quicken their pace, skirting around the pair as they anxiously avoid eye contact.[/ic]

[ooc]Natural 1 disguise check...

Also, you can choose to avoid the blow (it's a DC 0 for you); otherwise, you take 1 damage.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena scans her surroundings, quickly evaluating her opponents, pupils dilating.  Her pink eyes come to rest on the ornate blunderbuss of Tarpaulin Tlex.  The weapon might clear the room with a single shot.  Muscles tensed, she leaps towards the leather-clad man, chains whipping through the air, hoping to injure and disorient him before he can bring his weapon to bare.[/ic]

[ooc]Catena attacks, using one level of Grit in her attack roll and thus expending 1 point of her Agility pool:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]The chain smashes into Tlex, shattering his nose. He staggers back, bloodied, clutching his now-stained handkerchief. His other hand grasps his blunderbuss, raising it, not to fire, but in surrender.

"I fold!" he cries out, spitting tooth-shards, "Sixty Hells, woman, I fold!"

Before Catena can reply, however, the Ossifragant barrels into her, attempting to crush her in a cruel embrace. Rank breath assaults Catena's face as the ghul hisses:

"Lookss like it'ss jussst uss, Pink-Eyesss"[/ic]

[ooc]Your move. First make an Agility defense roll (DC 3). If you succeed, you evade the grappling attack. If not, you take 6 damage, and you are grappled, imposing a 1-step hindrance to attack/defense rolls. Either way, you can take your round. If grappled, you can attempt to slip out of the grapple (Agility DC 4), or muscle out of it or take over the grapple (Might DC 4). And you can obviously attack if you want instead, either in or out of a grapple.  Remember to please post stat pools at end of each round.[/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier ducks under the guard's swipe. "Ah! I'm goin', I'm goin'."

He is about to scurry off when the watchman suddenly intercepts him. "My badge? Why, it's right he-" He glances down at his chest, feigning surprise. "Huh? Musta lost it. Fuckin' hells, now I won't be gettin' paid for this haul!" He bemoans, and tosses the litter he's collected onto the cobblestones in a in a frustrated tantrum. While putting on this show Xavier is also backing off from the guard, preparing to dash for the alleys away from the Boulevarde.
[/ic]

[ooc]Make a bluff roll [Intellect based] for Xavier, please. Your expertise in deception tasks reduces the DC by 1 step. Also, please declare what your daily flex skill is going to be today[/ooc]

Flex skill is lockpicking.

Bluff roll:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

[ooc]It seems likely that Xavier will be running to try and lose the guard in the alleys. So I'm making a roll here in advance, for what ever check (if any) is needed.[/ooc]
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

[ic]The noxious vapors bedevil Vex at every turn. Amazingly, the hellhound still manages to pick up the scent, eventually following it to an oil- and blood-stained spot on the shrouded streets. Beyond that, however, the demon loses the trail, as the scent is too faint, too muddled by the overpowering fumes.

Mr. Nix fares even worse. Despite his resistance to the sickening effects of the gases, he is stymied by the haze. As he stumbles in the haze, he is nearly roasted by several blasts of fetid steam. Eventually though, he finds an aerugo-eaten staircase of pitted metal. It creaks pitifully as he climbs it, swaying and rocking like a pained beast. Ignoring its complaints, Mr. Nix reaches the second story, breaking free of the thickest vapors, only to expose himself to the baleful gaze of the rising sun. He closes his eyes momentarily to blot out the irksome light and continues his climb. However, he soon becomes disoriented, and when he opens his eyes, he finds himself before a side-door in one of the nearby buildings. Beside its brick-lined threshold, a steel bell and a waxy plaque reads, first in Hellspeak, then in a language he cannot understand:

Uşak-Barış, Chemist
Purveyor of Tinctures, Vapours, and Unctuous Solutions

Looking around in the hazy dawn, Mr. Nix cannot tell whether he is before the hobnailed building, nor can he find Vex in the miasma below.[/ic]

[ic]Already suspicious, the guard tries to grab Xavier as he backs away. The pile of garbage, however, gives the incognito assassin just the leverage to escape. Yet, as Xavier turns back around, he nearly runs into another Watchman, previously unseen in his blindspot. Backpedaling, Xavier accidentally runs into his discarded garbage pile, tripping over a rain-sodden scone. He slips and falls face-first on the street. Perhaps even more painful is the sight of his previously-hidden sabre clattering on the ground.

By the time Xavier rolls over, he is greeted by a pair of swordspears poised over his chest. The two guards glower at him, one asking the other in a tight voice:

"What'd we have 'ere, Jeun?"

"Not sure, Sergeant. He was posing as a sweeper, but I reckon he was casing one of the nearby businesses."

"Or one o' their clients."

"A pedophile, eh?"

"Wouldn't be the first. Either way, he's earned at least one ride on the Carousel."

"If he's lucky. The boys at the Painted House don't take kindly to child-snatchers."

Punctuating his point, Jeun lowers the tip of his spearsword. Meanwhile, the sergeant gives Xavier a mirthless gaze as he asks:

"So what will it be, 'sweeper': the Carousel or the House? Of course, we could always save ourselves the paperwork and gut you here, claiming you resisted arrest." [/ic]

[ooc]3 natural 1s, with 2 back-to-back. Bad luck, mate. Regardless, it's your move. You are prone, and this causes a hindrance to defense rolls vs melee. It also causes a hindrance to any other movement-related task, like trying to run, tumble away, etc., until you are no longer prone. You also take 1 point of Might damage from the fall.  Also, the Glass Carousel is a local 'jail' where prisoners work off petty crimes/debts by walking a massive rattle-wheel that powers various machinery like canals, dry docks, and dredging. The Painted House is the unofficial title of the large prison in the Ebon Ward. [/ooc]

[ic=A Reverie, Interrupted]Ulle-Shi knocks softly on the door. "Lord Phel-Nirian?".

His only reply is the rustle of sheets and somnolent breathing. He knocks again, more insistently, but the same reply greets him. As the nearby clock ticks away, Ulle-Shi wrings his hands. Eventually, he sighs, pushes the already ajar-door, and slips into the room.

The extravagantly decorated bedroom would feel at home in the richest of noble manses or magister's palaces –at least until one looks a little more closely at the sheets on the four-poster bed and notes how stained and frayed they are, or examines the tapestries and curtains and sees the patches of mold and threadbare edges. A tall, well-stocked bookcase to the south turns out to be leaning against the wall for support; the contents of its sagging shelves are poorly produced books with a combination of medical and erotic names on their mildewed spines. Three frames of faux silver hang on the walls, bereft of paintings. Everything is lightly musty, stained with age and well-beyond its prime. Moreover, there is something false, something almost hollow about the room. Closer inspection reveals the mendacity: nearly all the furnishings are well-used props, collected from countless plays and forgotten productions.

Sighing at the hollow opulence, as well as the bed's still-slumbering occupant, Ulle-Shi traverses the room. He throws open the musty, fraying curtains. Sunlight streams in, further banishing the room's facade of prosperity. Still unsatisfied, Ulle-Shi open a window, allowing the morning breeze to wash out the musty air. He pauses for a moment, enjoying the resplendent vista of the Violet Ward with its petal-strewn and ivy strangled balconies; traffic of steamships, submersibles, and paddle-wheeled water-taxis, and the myriad bathhouses, shadowmilk cafes, saloons, and perfumed harems that caress the Radula's west bank.

Turning away from the rose-rimmed splendor, the man loudly 'tsks', then whips the satin sheet off the bed, exposing the sleeping figure to the chill draft. "Lord Phel-Nirian," he politely demands, "It is time to rise. I come bearing important news about your case."

Slowly, Hadric stirs. He languidly stretches his limbs and yawns like a great cat, drowsy after a long feast. The draft, however, disturbs his peace. A shiver wracks his body, and his eyes open ever-so slightly. As they do, they behold Ulle-Shi's visage: a slight man, dressed in a tasseled, blue-silk cap and matching tunic, a brass pince-nez, and wooden sandals. He clutches a parcel and collection of scrolls. And he is waiting.[/ic]

[ooc]Ok, MG, here ya go. Ulle-Shi is a barrister, one who has been working on your case (or should I say the current one, as others have quit).[/ooc]

[ic=The Early Bird Gets the Worm]Hadric cranes his head forward to peer blearily at the intruder, stifling another yawn. "Oh." he says. "Ulle-Shi. It's only you. For a moment - well, nevermind. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company on this fine day?" Hadric says, rolling his neck from side to side as he props himself up into a sitting position. Ulle-Shi opens his mouth to reply, but Hadric excitedly raises a hand to still the barrister to silence. "Wait! Don't answer. First, I have news! So. You've no doubt heard rumour of the unpleasantness that has foisted itself upon the House of Taim in recent weeks. Terrible stuff, really." Hadric says.

Slowly and reluctantly he hoists himself out of bed, and stumbles behind the faded byobu - an unfashionable scene of falling leaves and strange hellish birds in flight - that stands awkwardly close to the four-poster. "In any case." he continues from behind the screen, evidently donning his day clothes. "As is proper, I sent off a letter offering my commiseration and sincere condolences to the Lady Taim. Of course I didn't expect much in the way of reply - a brusque rebuffment perhaps, or more likely nothing at all. To my surprise, I will admit, I received the most wonderfully polite correspondence. You see, it turns out that my late mother enjoyed the acquaintance of the late mother of Magistra Taim - which is hardly a revelation, I suppose, considering mother knew half the city in one way or another. Lady Taim thanked me for my concern, and in turn made plain her own regret at the unfortunate situation in which I find myself. We have since exchanged several letters discussing this and that, and - and! - in the latest I have been invited to call on the Magistra for afternoon tea - tomorrow! So, Nibs and I have been talking, and we've come up with -

"A ploy!" the befeathered demon yells as it plops unceremoniously from the bed canopy onto the floor.

"No! No. Nothing so uncouth as that, Nibs." Hadric replies.

"A ssscheme!" Nibs hisses, curling its bulk around one of the bed posts.

"More of a.. a plan, really." Hadric says sheepishly, dusting off his pants as he emerges from behind the byobu.

"And what is it this time?" Ulle-Shi asks, sighing, a look of long-suffering writ plainly across the barrister's features. Hadric grins.  

"Well, you see. The Lady Taim has intimated most carefully that the rumours regarding the involvement of the Saderacs in the recent unpleasantness are not entirely untrue. Serendipitously, dear old Uncle Claudius just so happens to be involved with the Saderacs in a certain business venture. Of this I am sure the Magistra is quite aware, as the ongoing implication is one of mutual benefit." Hadric says, arms akimbo as he stares out the window.

"And the icing!" Nibs cries, its head bobbing from side to side in mid-air, neck extended from its twined body. Hadric snaps his fingers.

"Right! The icing on the cake. The Magistra just so happens to have the ear of Chief-Justice Shenn. My exuberance overflows!" Hadric says. "Oh, don't give me that look, Ulle-Shi. I know I had best not get too excited. None of my other plans have worked out." he says, leaning on the window ledge, his tone suddenly miserable. He peers off into the distance for a moment, before turning to the barrister again. "Sorry. I almost forgot. What was it that you wanted, Ulle-Shi?"[/ic]

OOC: Don't think there were any rolls to make there.

[ooc]Some rolls first, and then I'll write out my action.

Agility defense roll:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Attack roll (unarmed attack, medium):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Catena will expend one point from her Might Pool to apply Grit to her damage if her attack is successul, for a total of 7 points of damage.

Current Pools: Might 12/13, Agility 11/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ic]Catena, taken off guard, winces as the ghul's powerful arms encircle her body, crushing her brutally.  Catena ignores the ghul's carrion fetor, innured to the smell of rancid flesh from years in the reeking slave-pits of Dolmen.  She flails, battering at the ghul's shoulders and neck with her fists, but the wind has been taken out of her.[/ic]

[ooc]Damn, bad rolls.  Adjusted pools (I'm assuming I didn't hit Ossifragant and so did not expend 1 Might for bonus damage):

Might 7/13, Agility 11/12, Intellect 7/7

I assume the six damage I was told to deduct included the -1 damage from my AC.[/ooc]

[ic]Alone up on the second story, Mr. Nix is confronted with a sense of unease.  The increasing sunlight it disorienting, and he has an urge to rush into the building to escape from it.  But we are alone.  No Vex.  No stupid tricky horrible Hell-beast to help us.  Is it a trap to get rid of us?  Nix grinds his teeth in agitation.  Every moment he lingers here, the sun rises higher, its rays gathering about him like a swarm of buzzing gnats.  Hellspeak, common enough in this city.  Not enough to incriminate.  What does this place have to do with the night stalker anyway?  It said nothing of chemicals or tinctures.  Wasting time.

Nix tests the door handle.  If it is unlocked, perhaps he can get a sense of this place and its connection to events.[/ic]

[ooc]In case he needs them:
Nix Perception: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]
Nix Initiative (He is on his guard in case someone is waiting to attack him beyond) [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Likewise, just in case:
Vex Perception: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]
Vex Initiative: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]
This is exactly the sort of trouble those bombs are for, so might as well use one or more of them now.
[/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier ignores the watchmen's question; he has no intention of allowing himself to be arrested this easily. His hand suddenly darts to grasp a smoke bomb from his belt, crushing the device to instantly detonate it. As the cloud of smoke erupts to engulf him and the guards, Xavier rolls on the ground to get on his feet and run. His cover having been thoroughly blown, he is concerned now with one thing only: escape.
[/ic]

[ic]The Ossifragant ignores Catena's ineffectual flailing. The ghul instead maintains its vise-like grip on the albino mercenary. Her ribs threaten to snap under the ungodly pressure and skewer her internal organs with their shards. Almost as unnerving, however, is the strange sensation she feels on her back -it feels and sounds as if the nightfolk's vestigial head is awakening, mouthing at Catena's back like a shriveled infant rooting for a bloody teat.

"That'sss right, my darling," the Ossifragant coos, as she attempts to tear into Catena's neck with her serrated teeth, "It'sss ssupper time..."[/ic]

[ooc]Bad rolls indeed (almost as bad as Ghostman's recent ill-luck). And you assumed correctly. Rolls of 1 automatically fail, be they dodge or attack rolls. 

Your move. You are still grappled, so you need to make an Agility defense roll or take another 5 points of damage (DC 4 now, with the 1-step hindrance included). And my bad, I didn't include your AC (I forgot about it since you don't wear armor), so last attack only did 5 damage to you. As before, you can attempt to slip out of the grapple (Agility DC 4), or muscle out of it or take over the grapple (Might DC 4). And you can obviously attack if you want instead, either in or out of a grapple.  Thank you for posting your stats last round. That was perfect.

Finally, roll a perception check for me.[/ooc]

[ic]As the smoke cloud engulfs the trio, Jeun stabs down, but his swordspear only strikes the cobbled street. The sergeant shouts, but his command is stifled by a coughing fit as he inhales the irritating fumes. He staggers back, out of the vapors, and blows a brass whistle.[/ic]

[ooc]Due to your expertise and 2-step benefaction from the bomb, you reduced the dodge DC to 0, so there is no need to roll for the initial stealth or dodge. This round, however, you do need to roll. DC is 1 for those in the cloud, or 2 for those without. You were able move a short distance last round. You can move a similar distance and hide this round, or a long distance and hide, but doing so imposes a 1-step hindrance to your stealth task. Roll for perception as well please -and please include your stat pools at the end of your posts.[/ooc]

[ic=Nix]The door is locked. The diabolist, however, is able to regain his bearings after a secondary examination of his surroundings. He discovers he has wandered to a building adjacent to his original target, one connected by the rickety staircase. Moreover, he is able to make out the vapor-wake of Vex snuffling amidst the fumes. He hears the hell-hound cackle as it catches a mutated rat and tears off its limbs one-by-one. Off in the not-too far distance, in the direction of the Tarnish's exterior, Mr. Nix hears the rattle of metalline wheels and a strange, wet gurgling sound. Vex, entertained by the rodent's death-shrieks, does not hear it. [/ic]

[ooc]Thanks for the all the helpful rolls, SH. Also, please post your stats with each ooc section, as you do have 1 Intellect damage from your emonomancy, IIRC.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Ulle-Shi, as always, is deeply unnerved by Nibs' presence. The liberated-but-still-seemingly-loyal demon is an affront to the barrister's neatly codified legalities. Then again, so is its erstwhile master.

Rubbing his brow, Ulle-Shi massages away the taxonomic conundrum as he listens to Hadric's news. He nods, attempts to speak several times, then gives up altogether, resigned to wait for Hadric' manic report to run its course. By the time the shreeva finishes, however, the barrister is distracted by all the implications.

"Tea with Magistra Taim? That is good, my lord. She does indeed have influence with the Chief-Justice. Yet-"

He flicks his head for a moment, as if mentally whipping himself, then continues, "-yet far more immediate is your need for greater caution. As your judiciary advocate, I must advise that you improve your residence's security. Why, your front door was left ajar. At first, I was concerned you left again, or were victim to robbery. I knocked, and no one answered. I thought we agreed that you would hire a servant to handle such affairs."

"And not the demon," Ulle-Shi raises a finger, cutting off Hadric's assumed reply, "We don't need to publicize that legal nightmare."

Sighing to regain his composure, the barrister continues:

"If you wish the courts to respect you as a noble, you need to start acting like a respectable, responsible, and rightful heir of House Phel-Nirian. Locking, much less closing, your front door would be a good start. Hiring a doorman would be a commendable following step. In fact, I would advise the latter as your first recourse, as doing so will address the former, among other needs, like my ability to drop off missives and necessary documents in your absence. Regardless, the status quo exposes you not only to the legal risk of ridicule and scorn, but also an unacceptable risk of physical assault. Why, imagine if I had been an assassin hired by your uncle. I could have crept in, unannounced, unknown, into your very bed-chambers whilst you slept unawares. In one stroke, however illegal and unethical as it might be, he would have completely absolved himself of the successionary debate."

"It was these very same kind of behaviors that caused your last barrister and my former superior to abandon your case. Unless you wish the same event to occur again, I strongly urge you to act upon our advice."

"That said-," he continues, without pause for fear of being interrupted, "-my original reason for coming was to relate a conversation I overhead last night in the archives. News that gravely pertains to your case."

"It was late, and I was returning some documents that I had borrowed in preparation of our next brief, when I overhead two of your uncle's clerks  talking freely to one another about the case. They must have assumed they were alone, though I also suspect wine may have also loosened their tongues. In any event, they revealed that Claudius is utterly confident that you be able to prove your identity; he accepts it as a foregone conclusion. Yet, by delaying this ruling, he has been able to deflate interest towards your cause. More importantly, he has been able to delay the far more important case: the resolution of succession. By extending the first case, he has been attempting, successfully I might add, to drain your coffers. In doing so, he has also been establishing the merits of his contentions for the second case: that you are unfit to rule. Regardless of your mother's intent, regardless of your bloodline, the courts have the power to deem you unable to rule, in which case, control over the House would immediately go to the next of kin -i.e., Claudius."

"And frankly, my lord, recent events provide ample evidence to support his contention."

"Consequently, I suggest the following: Restore the properties that the court has given to you. Make them profitable, both to you, and to the economy of our fair city. Understandably, this will take some time, but the monies will be necessary to overcome the legal blocks your uncle is setting up. Moreover, it will be essential to refute his contention that you cannot be trusted to manage the financial interests of your House, and that investing you with said power would be a detriment to the economic stability of the city. Character... eccentricities will not matter at all if he cannot prove the above points, as the courts can ignore social atypicality but not economic insolvency."

"Try, however-," he adds delicately, "-to curtail such eccentricities if at all possible. At least in public, please. They do nothing to aid our case, my lord."

"Now, as to the matter of Magistra Taim, I would certainly advise you to attend, and by all means engender as many allies as you can amongst the nobility. As for Chief-Justice Shenn, however, I would posit that his influence, and thus her influence over him, will become far less important with the coming year. The elections will see a new group of justices and stewards alike. Although many will stay, Shenn's health is failing and the pundits all agree that his time is at an end. Consequently, I do not expect any large legal decisions to be placed before him, or made by him, in the following months. Perhaps your current case, but not the following. Which is ideal, since you will need time to counter your uncle's contentions, just as I will need time to review the pertinent case law."

"With those responsibilities before us, I should depart."

"Oh, I almost forgot-," he says as he turns to go, but stops, extending the notarized parcel in his hands, "-this belongs to you. It was delivered to my office. It seems an old paramour of your mother, one Harne-Fei, designated that she receive the enclosed items upon his death. There was a small dispute whether, in her absence, the package should fall to you or your uncle. However, I was able to convince the magistrate that the will designated Cybille, rather than House Phel-Nirian, as the legal recipient of the package, and that such personally-deeded items would thus fall to the first-blood descendant rather than house patriarch. Oh, Claudius' barristers objected of course, but they backed down swiftly enough."

"But now, I really most go. Daylight is burning."[/ic]

[ooc]Was my perception check high enough to determine whether the sound of "metalline wheels and a strange, wet gurgling sound" was approaching or receding, or otherwise moving?[/ooc]

[ooc]No, the distance and din of the vents and steamworks preclude such distinction. Your vantage provides you a benefaction to perception checks, even as your overall surroundings provides a hindrance. Daylight ain't helping either.[/ooc]

[ic]
Having just avoided being skewered Xavier takes flight, his feet battering on the cobblestones as he sprints for the labyrinthine back streets and alleys where he hopes to elude his pursuers. He throws a few quick glances back at the guards as he flees but mostly his attention is dedicated to finding an optimal route for an escape. To improve his vision he yanks off the eyepatch covering his clockwork graft, his appearance being the least of his worries for the time being.
[/ic]

[ooc]
Attempting to move a long distance and hide.

Stealth roll, with one level of Grit applied:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Perception roll:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 13/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)

[/ooc]

[ic]Competence finally trumps coincidence as Xavier evades his pursuers. Before either Watchman can respond, the assassin ducks into a nearby alley, away from Praedarchs' Boulevarde. Racing into the nest of backstreets that sustain the ward's maze of boutiques, he blends into the bustling crowd of teamsters, cart-haulers, and porters.

Behind him, the blaring of Watchmen's whistles and barked commands hound him. Fickle fortune, however, finally favors him, when the rogue spots a joiner's display left leaning nearby a short-storied building. Swiftly, he races up the decorative staircase and nimbly leaps to the shingled rooftops. He creeps stealthily atop a row of conjoined shops, hiding between thinly smoking chimneys.

From his concealed vantage, he can easily spy upon the enraged hive of Watchmen. They scour the streets and shops, stopping passers-by and searching carts and wagons. It seems as if the entire ward's gendarme is looking for him -and it seems, at least for the moment, that he is successfully evading them.[/ic]

[ooc]Well spent Grit. Also, thanks for posting your pool stats. If you do stay atop the roof, I'll need balance checks as well as stealth. Should you choose to stay, tell me how long.[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric bids a polite farewell to Ulle-Shi, promising to address the necessary matters of profitability and security. He sits down on the edge of his bed, the parcel in his lap. "A pressent." Nibs says, half of his body dangling down from the canopy. "Open it, nazori. Open it!"

"Hmmm. A present, indeed. But in our experience, have mysterious packages ever been a good omen?" Hadric replies.

"In Crepussscle. At the Jaded Growler, oh, how enjoyable. How deliciousss." Nibs says.

"A good omen for you, maybe! I, however, had to lug around a certain bloated and comatose snake for three weeks. Anyways, Ulle-Shi is right, I suppose. We should head down to the Copper Ward, roust ourselves up a doorman. I'd love to give you the job, but some people just aren't as forward thinking as we are, and I can't afford to lose another barrister over it. Respectability, Nibs, is the word of the day. Now, the parcel." Hadric says, untying the twine that binds it.[/ic]

[ooc]Rolls examining the contents of the parcel. Hadric will of course also read anything inside.

Perception: (http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3

Sense/Identify Witchcraft: (http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/ooc]

Edit: Ack, sorry. Edited the in character text after rolling. Perception was a 3, Sense/Identify was a 2. Didn't know it would do that.

[ic]Catena tries to push the Ossifragant's snapping jaws aside.  She squares her jaw and thrusts her head upward, attempting to head-butt the ghul's lolling vesitigial head.[/ic]

[ooc]Catena will apply two levels of Grit to aid her defense, draining 3 points from her Agility pool:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

She counterattacks, attempting to head-butt the Ossifragant.  She will apply one level of Grit to her attack, draining yet another point from her Agility pool:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6

If she hits, she'll apply a level of Grit to her damage, draining a point from her Might pool for a total of 7 damage.

Perception:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6

Pools:

Might 7/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ooc]Adjusted Pools from damage:

Might 2/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7

Since I rolled a 6, do I get to decide on a major effect?  If so I'd like to stun the ghul so that I can disentangle myself.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Removing the paper and twine packaging, Hadric hefts a fine humidor. The box is fashioned of richly ornamented snake-cedar and has a lid inset with rose-tinted acrylic glass. The pane reveals a dozen cigarillos, a clockwork hygrometer, a sepiolite-carved cigarillo holder, and a handwritten note with spidery script that reads:

Beloved Cybille,
A gift to kindle. May it remind you of an old flame, and nights when we both burned bright.
H.F.

Reading the writing aloud, Nibs perversely snickers, then flicks its forked tongue longingly at the fine cigarillos.

Hadric's eyes meanwhile glow with aurelian light as he inspects the contents. His eldritch senses detect a dweomer, resting inside the cigarillo holder. Its enchantment is subtle and hints at secret, simmering flames. The arcana, however, is not nigromantic. Instead, it resembles goetic spellcraft that is oddly bereft of diabolic influence.[/ic]

[ooc]In more layman's tongue, an invocation is stored within the cigarillo holder. It will activate once, and only once, when a cigarillo is first smoked through the device. You can't tell what it will do exactly, but it seems it will summon something, rather than directly affect the user. And that something is not demonic.

In addition to the ensorcellment, Hadric sees that the hygrometer is operational and that the contents have thus retained their optimal humidity.

Also, for what it's worth, you have no clue who Harne-Fei is, other than what the note reads and what Ulle-Shi related. [/ooc]

[ic]"Hmmmmmm." Hadric hmmms.

"Hmmmmm!" Nibs concurs.

"While mother's personal business certainly isn't any of mine, we can't let this fine gift go to waste. Coincidentally I just so happen to have a powerful craving for the sweet smoke of one of these cigarillos. Which is to say, let's surreptitiously suss out the secrets of its summoning. So, retrieve the pack, and I shall place it upon my back." Hadric says, gathering up his things. Nibs hisses with amusement as it squirms under the bed, then emerges on the other side pushing a large and dusty backpack with its head. "I'd let you watch the house, Nibs." Hadric continues, shouldering the backpack. "But I think you could use the fresh air. And besides, I'll need to avail myself of your good judgment when selecting our new hire, of course."

"You'd no doubt pick a ssscoundrel. A thief!" it says, slithering its way up Hadric's body, slowly coiling itself into the backpack.

"Right. So, remember the word of the day - that means no peaking until we're across the river and well away from the easily offended crust of our fine society. But first, a smoke! Like mother always said, one shouldn't smoke indoors. 'Once its in you can't get it out.' she'd say. So, to the stoop!" He says, cradling the humidor under one arm as he steps out of his bedroom, winding his way through the decrepit old bordello to the backdoor and the small riverfront yard. Crossing the threshold, he recalls Ulle-Shi's chiding, and reluctantly locks the door behind him.

Hadric takes up one of the cigarillos, gently placing it into the holder held between his lips. Nibs worms its head out of the pack to peer over Hadric's shoulder. Hadric snaps his fingers, producing a small spark and a gentle waft of cinnamon. Kindling the cigarillo to life, he inhales deeply.[/ic]

[ooc]Hadric will spend one intellect point on gutter witchcraft to light the cigarillo. Pools are thus currently - Might: 13/13, Agility: 13[14]/14, Intellect: 8/9[/ooc]

[ic]His nerves flash and prickle as Mr. Nix takes in the noise, so eerily similar to the ones described.  No chains, but that gurgle....  For a moment he stands paralyzed between two competing impulses--the one to chase down the sound, and get to the bottom of this mystery, and the other to flee from the danger of the unknown, from the harsh, judgmental and cruel light of an uncaring sun for the dark and uterean refuge of his drafty, crumbling tenement.  What will we do if we catch it?  The fiery one ever works against us--it would have us at a disadvantage.  We don't like that do we?  We don't like that one bit.

Finally, he rushes down the whimpering staircase and back into the Miasma.  At least the vapor hides us from unfriendly eyes.  Another decision occurs to him: To risk calling out for the hound, or risk sneaking up on it alone. Folly.  Folly all around.  "Vex!" he cries out.  "Come!"  A decision made, now he shall have to live with it.

Nix pads along through the haze with as much speed as his stealth will allow, mouthing silent curses at himself in Hellspeak.  He keeps the buildings between himself and the hateful sun, creeping through the shadows and darting from one adumbral sanctuary to the next, always with an open ear for the gurgling sound. He stops a moment to see if the infernal hellhound is anywhere to be seen, before continuing on, on toward the Tarnish Exterior, where he heard the noise.  
[/ic]
[ooc]Stealth: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]
Perception: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]
Agility, in case running down the rickety stairs (or something resulting from it) requires it: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Vex's Perception of Nix's call: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]  If successful, Vex will follow Mr. Nix, as he is bound to do.

Might 7  Agility 10  Intellect 14/15[/ooc]

[ic]
The fugitive assassin on the roof squats, taking hold of a chimney to steady himself while he catches his breath and observes the situation down below. Better not risk a move while the streets are hot. With that many copper-heads on my tail I'd be hard pressed to avoid being spotted down there. Sooner or later they'll have to call off the manhunt. Seeing as the guards haven't thought to look for him up on the roofs so far, Xavier decides to stay on his current refuge and wait for the mass of watchmen to disperse.
[/ic]

[ooc]
He'll be staying on the roof until most of the guards have departed the block. Should he be spotted though, he'll want to take off immediately.

(I'm assuming that balancing and hiding are separate tasks and that Grit can thus be applied to each.)

Stealth roll, with one level of Grit applied:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Balance roll, with one level of Grit applied:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 11/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena's ferocity catches the ghul off-guard. Her blow smashes into the vestigial head, rupturing its fontanelles in a shower of blood and neural fluid. The Ossifragrant, shrieking in hideous pain and horror, releases the ex-slave to cradle the dangling member in her claws. Pitifully, she attempts to coax the maimed face to open its eerily-closed eyes.

Behind her, Catena witnesses an equally disturbing scene. Jarrow Slake stirs. His neck, once slit, has crusted over in a frothing swarm of sanguine scarabs. His tattoos, once dim red, now glow a lurid, hungry shade. Fangs protrude from his blood-scabbed mouth, and his tongue flickers like a sensile proboscis. As he rises, his eyes bulge with madness  and rage, locking on the grief-blinded grave-spawn.

Seeing the ominous spectacle, Tlex backs away. Guin, meanwhile, continues watching with a measured gaze.[/ic]

[ooc]The Ossifragrant is stunned for 1 round, DC 3 to attack. All three of you are within immediate range of one another.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The cigarillo smoke is strong, like roasted leather and sun-dried pepper. As Hadric exhales the pungent smoke from his nostrils, it rapidly expands, forming a massive cloud in mere seconds.

Within the hazy pillar, a towering ibis emerges. Its feathers are a mottled crimson, and its eyes burn like beady coals. A halo of sulphurous green flames adorns its avian head. Slowly, the feverishly hot creature turns to regard Hadric, notes the lit cigarillo in his hand, and suddenly pounces, trying to skewer the shreeva with its black-iron bill.[/ic]    

[ooc]DC 3 Agility defense of take 6 damage and catch on fire.[/ooc]

[ic]At the sight of the creature Hadric's jaw slackens, and he meekly drops the cigarillo. "Nibs! What have you done!?" he cries, throwing himself to the side, struggling to get a firm grip on his kneaf.[/ic]

[ooc]Hadric will apply one level of grit to his agility defence roll to reduce the DC by 1, costing 1 from the agility pool due to edge.

Defence: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

He will then try to counterattack against the creature as soon as possible with his kneaf, spending 0 from might due to edge to use Thrust.

Offense: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Mr. Nix]Vex follows at Mr. Nix's heels. Together, they stalk through the toxic haze, creeping ever closer to the source of the creaking, gurgling noise. It leads them out of the Tarnish, down a tortuous street strewn with flaccid clothes' lines, faded paper lanterns, and tired-eyed buskers. Turning the corner, the diabolist discovers the sound's origin.

It is a paint-chipped carriage, pulled by a six-armed cestoid. Currently stopped in front of a greasy tavern selling charred dog-meat, the carriage opens. A young boy, naked save for henna-scribed sigils and a papier mâché mask, steps out and heads to the char-house. Another much larger figure remains behind, veiled by a muslin gauze.[/ic]

[ic=Hadric]Barely evading the ibis' strike, Hadric ripostes with deadly skill. His leaf-bladed counterattack nearly disembowels the haloed beast. Yet, instead of shearing flesh or viscera, his kneaf cuts naught but smoke. The wound nevertheless causes the creature to waver and shrink, as if deflating.  

So injured, the mottled ibis shrieks, imploding into the shape of a cackling hyena. It belches a massive gout of emerald flames, attempting to incinerate both Hadric and his former familiar.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility defense roll (DC 2) or take 4 damage and catch on fire.[/ooc]

[ic]Nibs peeks out of Hadric's pack - cat-eyes widening - as Hadric twists. The motion is not smooth, not the graceful dodge of a knife-dancer, but sudden and jarring. Seeming almost to flicker, he dives towards the smoke-creature, his kneaf poised to strike it through the head.[/ic]

[ooc]Another level of grit on the dodge, reducing DC to 1, and agility pool to 11[12].

Defence: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Using Thrust again on the attack.

Offence: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The air boils. Flames shoot over Hadric's head, singing his golden curls. His blade, however, cleaves the fumificating spirit's skull. Once more, the wound sprays smoke. Once more, the entity shrieks, shrinks, and deflates. This time, however, it morphs into a still smaller owl with molten claws. Immediately, it flies at Hadric's face, trying to gouge out his eyes.[/ic]

[ooc]DC 1 to dodge, DC 1 to strike. Also, please roll a DC 2 perception roll and a witchcraft roll (DC 4). Finally, please remember to post all three stats for consistency's sake. Danke.[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Atop his shingled perch, Xavier watches the guards as they continue their manhunt. Their persistence is remarkable, even if irksome to the assassin. Besides scouring the streets, they check the rooftops, scanning from atop a flat-roofed building. Xavier evades detection, however, ducking behind a chimney. A Watchmen even presses a chimney-sweep to search Xavier's roof, but the girl is lazy in her task and all-too easy to avoid. Eventually, the Watchmen give up on their search -or at least concentrate their vigilance in other sections of the ward.

By the time the fifth chime sounds, the streets finally resume their normal bustle. Patrols still walk the streets, but their presence is thin and sporadic. Deeming the moment has come -and all-too anxious stretch his legs and breathe non-smoke-ridden air- Xavier nimbly crosses the rooftop and half-swings, half-slides down a drainage pipe. Although stained with soot and dirt, he mingles into the middle-class crowd.[/ic]

[ic]Hadric jerks his head backwards. He lashes out haphazardly with his leaf-blade, hoping to finish it.[/ic]

[ooc]Defence: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]
Offence (again using thrust): [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]
Perception (which I believe I have expertise in, assuming sight based): [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]
Witchcraft (which I definitely have expertise in): [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Pools - Might: 13/13, Agility: 11[12]/14, Intellect: 8/9[/ooc]

[ic]Catena watches the pair carefully while backing slowly away.  As surreptitiously as possible she attempts to procure one of the maiden swords from the walls while also positioning herself so that Tlex is between her and Jarrow Slake.  In the meantime she studies the room, looking for anything she might knock over onto the combatants, her eyes flitting from the stuffed, chimerical beast to the various instruments of excruciation that decorate the chamber.[/ic]

[ooc]Also trying to figure out what Slake is...  My guess is Writheling but those tattoos could be providing him with some kind of regeneration.  Could be a weird demoniac possession thing.

Perception check in case I need it for spotting something heavy and well-positioned:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The verdant blade slashes the owl in two. So rent, the shapeshifting spirit instantly sublimates into a puff of pungent smoke. Choking on the pepper-scented vapors, Hadric sees a flicker of light in his peripheral vision. Turning, the nobleman sees his threshold in flames! Sulphuric fire gnaws on the wooden lintel and once-ornate shutters.

Yet, even as he contemplates the nascent conflagration, Hadric notices the cigarillo's smoke-cloud beginning to writhe, roll, and congeal into an owl's outline. [/ic]

[ooc]You are sickened for 1 round due to breathing in the smoke.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]So distracted, the Ossifragrant ignores Catena's motion. Tlex however, already withdrawn and wary of the albino warrior, notes her movements and swiftly backs to the wall, his blunderbuss at ready. Nonetheless unobstructed, Catena is able to retrieve one of the displayed executioner's swords, a baroque affair with seraph-tongued quillions and a quince-shaped pommel. Seeing Catena unsheathe the display, Guin arches an eyebrow but otherwise remains silent.

Yet, while Catena arms herself, Jarrow pounces on the Ossifragrant. The ghul responds in kind, and soon the pair are wrapped in a violent embrace of claws, fangs, and primal fury.[/ic]

[ooc]To identify what Jarrow is, you need to make an Intellect roll. As for your perception, you identify several of the gibbets. One issue with them is that they are not likely close enough to the combatants. The guillotine, you reckon, is too-well secured. The stuffed monstrosity is likely the best bet. It's certainly the largest -though you can't guess it's weight since its stuffing is unknown. It's also the closest to the combatants and doesn't seem to be externally anchored. The only issue is that it is on the other side of the room -and the grappled duo stand between you and it (though it's only a short distance).[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric wheezes as a puff of smoke seems to fly directly up his nose. "I'm starting to think mother and Harne-Fei didn't part on the best of terms!" he says, sputtering. He cries out as the owl begins to reform, a sound that - with a cough - turns into a hysterical laugh as he notices his house catching flame. "Nibs! Do something!" Hadric yells as he dashes over to the still-smoking cigarillo and grinds it out with his heel. Hadric swats manically at the flaming lintel with his gloved hands. It doesn't seem to be a particularly effective fire-fighting strategy. Nibs, meanwhile, has slithered over to the river's edge and dangled its head over and into the water. The snake-demon bloats rapidly, and ponderously backs itself out and starts inching towards the conflagration. Nibs' eyes bulge, water dripping from its closed mouth. The scene might be comical, if it weren't so serious.[/ic]

[ic]Catena shoots Tlex a dark look as she hefts the ornate sword, feeling the weight of it.

"If you're out of this then leave," she says, eyes narrowed.[/ic]

[ooc]Intellect check:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]For a moment, Tlex hesitates. But discretion proves the better part of valor. Placing his hand on the door, he says to Guin:

"Lord Elphias will have to excuse me. Three thousand chit is a meager sum to play this tune, 'specially when a man can't use his favored instrument."

Turning to Catena as he departs, he darkly adds:

"Till next time... assuming you have one."

Meanwhile, man and ghul continue their deadly struggle. Eventually recovering from her shock, the Ossifragrant latches onto the one of Jarrow's tattooed arms, twisting, crushing, and lacerating. Yet the seemingly possessed man fights on, numb to the pain and unconcerned by the injury -especially as his blood begins to froth, crystalize, and patch his flesh back together.[/ic]

[ooc]Catena has no clue what Jarrow Slake is. This is the first she's heard or seen of him -and his 'symptoms' don't definitively identify him to the relatively unscholarly ex-slave.

Also, the sword while sharp and heavy isn't balanced properly for fighting. Also, it lacks the point and the ornamentation further throws off the balance and heft. Consequently, although a heavy bladed weapon, it imposes a 1-step hindrance to attacks against moving objects -since you can't optimally change or line up strikes.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Upon snuffing the lit cigarillo, Hadric watches with some satisfaction as the smoke-spirit finally dissipates. His attempts to extinguish the flames crawling up his residence are another matter.[/ic]

[ic]Hadric stares aghast as tendrils of flame lick ever higher up the exterior of the old manse. The lumbering Nibs finally reaches him, bumping into his leg. "Nibs! You're a genius." he says, getting his hands under the water-logged demon, attempting to hoist it into range. Nibs burbles something unintelligible in reply.[/ic]

[ooc]I'm assuming might check for nibs-hoisting, I'll use grit just in case: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier figures that, after the backstreet fiasco and with the watchmen patrols probably still at least keeping their eyes open for anyone matching his desription, returning to the Dollhouse would be a huge gamble. Even if he could slip past the guards the doll-maker's staff might have taken notice of the commotion and be on alert for any trouble. Probably gonna have to delay any infiltration attempts till the evening hours. It'll be hard to get the job done before the end of the day then, but hopefully better chances of success. And I'll be needing a new disguise for sure.

He fixes his eyepatch in place and heads out of the Saffron Ward, intent on returning to his tenement for a bit of rest and cleaning while planning his next move.
[/ic]

Quote from: Rose-of-Vellum
[ic=Mr. Nix]Vex follows at Mr. Nix's heels. Together, they stalk through the toxic haze, creeping ever closer to the source of the creaking, gurgling noise. It leads them out of the Tarnish, down a tortuous street strewn with flaccid clothes' lines, faded paper lanterns, and tired-eyed buskers. Turning the corner, the diabolist discovers the sound's origin.

It is a paint-chipped carriage, pulled by a six-armed cestoid. Currently stopped in front of a greasy tavern selling charred dog-meat, the carriage opens. A young boy, naked save for henna-scribed sigils and a papier mâché mask, steps out and heads to the char-house. Another much larger figure remains behind, veiled by a muslin gauze.[/ic]

[ic]"Cestoid.  Hurmmm...." Mr. Nix mutters to himself under his breath.  He has the frustrating sensation of trying to assemble a puzzle where none of the pieces seem to fit together.  A rash of disappearances.  Wealthy clients of the Brass Skulls.  The gurgling of a cestoid, but a man's shape.  The rattle of chains.  The rusted metal of the Flensery, inscribed with hellish runes by a gravespawn.  The flesh of two deaders.  Machines.  House Phan-Laru.  A mob.  A dead alchemist.  A veiled figure and a naked boy.  Slave?  Child prostitute?  Too much unknown.  

"The important pieces are missing" he decides aloud.  "They've stolen them."
The hellhound's cracked nose snuffles in his palm, and the demon replies "Then we must steal them back, mustn't we?"
"For once it speaks truth."  But to what end? He does not add.
"I always speak the truth unto my master" says the hound, and and insuppressible grin infused the words with a double meaning as it added "yea even the very letter of it."
Nix wheels round and kicks the beast hard in the abdomen, and flails fists against it, cursing and shrieking.  "DOUBLE-DEALING CUR!  IT MOCKS ME!"  

Vex yelps in pain and slinks away, but Nix still thinks he can hear it laughing at him.  "That hellhound will be the death of us." Remembering his condition he shrugs and adds "Again."

He turns his attention back to the figures and the cestoid drawing the carriage.  Do these two have anything to do with the disappearances?  Need more data.  He searches his mind to determine whether the henna symbols have any meaning he is aware of--arcane, hellish, or otherwise.  He catalogues this place, wondering if it might be connected.  Charred dog meat.  Charred enough and you don't know what meat it is: could be anything, and who's to question?  

"We will follow them.  Could be it leads us somewhere important." [/ic]
[ooc]Check to attempt to decipher the henna sigils.  If they are arcane then his witchcraft should give him expertise.  If they are arcane and diabolical, he might even have mastery.  [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]
Tailing the carriage without being noticed (also staying in the shadows of the building as much as possible to avoid sunlight penalties).  Stealth gives him expertise. [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]
Perception for anything else that might be important for him to make note of: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Might 7  Agility 10  Intellect 14/15[/ooc]

[ooc]Ghostman, please roll a stealth and sight-based perception.[/ooc]

[ooc]
Stealth:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Perception:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 11/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]With an urgency both comical and fierce, Hadric hoists the river-bloated demon and hoses down the fire. Nibs, wrung dry like a wet towel, is assaulted by clouds of steam and smoke. The fiend coughs and sputters, than hangs limply in Hadric's arms, utterly spent and exhausted. The fire, however, is extinguished. Bits of wood smolder and smoke, but eventually the embers succumb to the riparian-moist air and Hadric's subsequent attempts to snuff them out with his now-completely singed gloves.

Once more, Nibs goes to comment on the strange affair, but his reply is an unintelligible smoke-hissing tussiculation.

Behind the erstwhile familiar, a thin crowd of pedestrians has gathered, attracted by the flash and sound of flame, smoke, and shouting. Their countenances are a mixture of curiosity, mirth, and concern. [/ic]

[ooc]The fire is out. Nibs is out for the count as well, though. Normal physics wouldn't allow enough water intake to put out the fire, but demons are anything but normal. The effort of drawing in so much water -and the inhalation of so much smoke- however has left the fiend spent -mechanically, Nibs is nauseated.[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Xavier vanishes into the perambulating herd. So concealed, his evades the gambit of guards and leaves the Saffron Ward without incident. Shortly thereafter though, he notices a trio of Nine-Eyes thugs trailing him, but he gives them the slip with long-practiced ease.[/ic]

[ooc]Your call Ghostman whether you want to return home or potentially trail the thugs. You rolled high enough either way, so I wanted to present the option.[/ooc]

[ooc]Another clarification, but this time for SH. Since the boy went into the building and the carriage is 'parked' outside, did you want to go into the establishment to spy on the boy's tattoos or wait outside and watch the carriage?[/ooc]

Quote from: Rose-of-Vellum
[ooc]Another clarification, but this time for SH. Since the boy went into the building and the carriage is 'parked' outside, did you want to go into the establishment to spy on the boy's tattoos or wait outside and watch the carriage?[/ooc]

[ooc]I meant that he would think about the symbols he had seen before the boy went inside, but if his fleeting glance is too little to base an attempt to interpret on, then let's say he follows the boy inside to get a closer look.  He will attempt to avoid notice on the pretense of being just another customer browsing the wares.  He will, however, be keeping tabs on the carriage, in case it shows signs of going anyplace.

Deceit (to disguise his intention): [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier hides behind a half-loaded cart parked next to a shop and allows the the thugs to pass by. Nine-Eyes... I should find out where they're headed. It could be useful knowledge for the syndicate. He waits until the trio has moved to a safe distance and begins to shadow them, again removing his eyepatch for better vision.
[/ic]

[ooc]
I'm striving to maintain a lengthy distance to maximise safety, even at the cost of possibly making it harder to keep track of the trio. I'm assuming that this'll call for stealth and/or perception rolls, so I'm including both.

Stealth, with Grit applied:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Perception:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 10/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)

[/ooc]

[ic]Catena attempts to push the stuffed grotesque over, hoping to crush (or at least disorient) the two combatants before she moves in for the kill.[/ic]

[ooc]Might check (I assume) to knock the thing over:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Mr. Nix]Even from afar, Mr. Nix identifies the henna markings as diabolic in nature. Their exact import, however, evades him at such a distance. And so, ducking into the greasy char-pit, he approaches the masked waif to get a better look.

Inside the smoke-choked establishment, a gnarled woman shaves off blackened meat from a vertical, steam-powered rotisserie. She half-barks, half-yells at the ghul to stay at the back of the line, even as she continues to serve a series of straw-hatted, rash-blotched customers. Shuffling behind the masked youth, Mr. Nix is able to easily study the skin-marking.

By the time the waif reaches the front of the line, orders, and departs with an oil-stained penny-dreadful filled with meat shavings, Mr. Nix deciphers the markings: they mark the boy as a sacrifice, a foreordained feast for an assembly of demons referred to as Byleth's Diet. In addition to this grisly, if mundane, declaration, the sigils have an eldritch purpose. Apparently, they capture the boy's otherwise ephemeral emotions, steeping his skin with the esoteric flavor of increasingly-layered moods.  

As the waif makes his way back to the cestoid-pulled carriage, the rotisserie-shaver interrupts Mr. Nix's thoughts with a raspy cough. "Tramp's not on the menu, half-man," she barks with a desiccated grimace, waving her paired cleavers meaningfully, "So how much you want? Or're you selling the dog?"[/ic]

[ic=Xavier]The thugs lead Xavier through the Violet Ward's perfumed heart. Skirting the southern section and its bustling drug-markets, they pass an aromatic kaleidoscope of shadowmilk cafes, saloons, and bordellos. Yet, when the trio turns unto a street lined with high-class clubs and a terraced bathhouse, they disappear from Xavier's sight.

He swiftly spots them, however, as his mechanical eye scans the shadows of the marble-sculpted terrace. Hidden behind a row of gloom-shrouded statues, they await their prey with blackjack, sap, and nightstick in hand.[/ic]

[ooc]It appears the thugs spotted you, and now lie in wait to ambush you. Because you spotted them, you aren't flat-footed to the attack. Instead, roll an Initiative check (Agility based) DC 2. If you succeed, you can act first. You are within an immediate distance to the two closest thugs.

Should it matter, you are near the border between the Viridian Ward and Violet Ward (but are still in the latter). You recognize the street as the Gadfly's Trammel and the bathhouse as the Blanery Wallows.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The taxidermic monstrosity proves surprisingly heavy, and frustratingly sturdy as Catena attempts, but fails, to overturn it. 

Meanwhile, the Ossifragrant finally manages to throw the blood-frothing Jarrow off her back. She swiftly grapples the man from behind, then begins to savagely gnaw on the his spine. Jarrow screams in pain and rage, blood-frothing from his fanged mouth and spilling from his ravaged neck.[/ic]

[ic]
Three against one makes for shitty odds. Time to give 'em the slip. "Sorry boys, haven't got any time to chat with ya!" Xavier spins on his heels and springs to a run, intent on retreating back to the Violet Ward.
[/ic]

[ooc]
Initiative check, applying Grit:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 9/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]The Nine Eyes, though shocked by Xavier's uncanny perception and speed, nonetheless give chase.

"Get 'im!" one shouts to the others. Yet, as they turn off the Gadfly, a passing carriage temporarily blocks their way. Shouting and cursing, they tumble around the auroch-drawn conveyance and continue their pursuit.[/ic]

[ooc]Among others, you main options are to (a) use stealth or (b) simply outsprint them. Both are Agility rolls, and both are DC 2s at this point.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena grunts in irritation.  She stands to the side, preparing to bring her heavy blade down on either Jarrow Slake or the Ossifragant - whichever gets the better of the other.[/ic]

[ooc]Might check to attack whoever dispatches the other, if/when the combat between the pair resolves itself:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The mutated grave-spawn continues gnawing on Jarrow's spine until a resounding 'crack' fills the air, silencing the man's screams. She attempts to finish the job by gorily ripping off the man's head from his twice-maimed neck, but the Ossifragrant catches the glint of Catena's rising blade.

Swiftly, the blood-drenched ghul spins. The maiden-sword falls.

But the strike is off-balance. Its weight, coupled with Catena's might, causes it to sink deep into the ground, shattering the flagstone flooring. A shard flies into Catena's eye, momentarily blinding her.

So unsighted, she can only whirl in the general direction of the circling Ossifragrant. Blinking away the shrapnel and tears, Catena is struck by the ghul's approaching breath, the scrape of her claws against the marred stone, and the hiss of her mirthless voice:

"You hurt usss, Pink-Eyesss. Broke usss. Now, we hurt you. Breaksss you."[/ic]

[ooc]The blindness is temporarily and incomplete. Still, for the next round, the DCs of all sight-affected tasks increase by 1 step (this includes attacking and dodging). DC 3 to dodge her next attack or take 5 damage (AC adjusted). DC 4 to attack. Both DCs include the 1 step increase. Remember to post your stats. [/ooc]

[ic]Hadric removes his ruined gloves, tossing them to the ground. He shushes Nibs when the demon tries to speak again. "Rest up Nibs, you've earned it! I mean, who knew you could expel that much liquid? Well, I suppose I did, actually." he says, patting Nibs on the head in a vaguely distracted way. Hadric gently coils Nibs back into his pack, shouldering it once more. Noticing the small crowd, a minor frown of consternation crosses his face. "Ah. Ladies, gentlemen, and other passersby. Merely a minor malfunction while practicing pyrotechnic display! I apologize for any concern that may have been aroused, but as you can see the situation is well in hand. Indeed - could it be any other way?" Hadric says, gesturing grandly at both himself and the scorched and steaming house. "Of course, the show draws to its close, as all shows must, and I must bid you good-day!" he continues, making a shooing motion with his hands. "Good-day!"[/ic]


[ooc]Hadric will spend a few moments using Hexsight (2 Intellect points) to try and figure out what the hells just happened. Regardless of his conclusion, Hadric finds himself in dire need of a haircut - his luscious locks scorched - and shall go in search of one of the Violet Ward's most skilled coiffeurs (or, if that should prove too distasteful to his ever-shrinking coinpurse, less-skilled). He will double-check that his door is locked before departing.

Some sort of witchcraft roll to go along with Hexsight if necessary: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Might: 12/13, Agility: 11[12]/14, Intellect: 6/9[/ooc]

[ic]Putting a small coin down, Mr. Nix hisses at the butcher "Give uss a cut."

He eyes the steam-powered rotisserie far more hungrily than the meat, despite his own carping viscera.  Flensery...yes... he feels a grim and unsettling satisfaction at this first fragmentary glimpse at the picture.   Meandering the backlit corridors of his mind he catches a fleeting flash of the grizzly Platonic shadow-play.  A cestoid carriage pulls a human sacrifice, plucked from the choking miasmal streets and vapor-ridden back alleys of the Black Souse Tarnish to be served up as the dish of emotion and sentiment for Byleth's diet; someone no one would miss.  Or so they thought.  Now what to do what to do about it?  He turned his gaze outward to focus his sunblighted ocular orbs on the proverbial fatted-calf that ambled away, back towards its doom-carriage, seemingly oblivious as to its fate.  Or had it merely accepted its impending demise?  Mesmerized, perhaps.

"It makes us very hungry..."

The woman slams the chunk of burnt flesh onto the counter, shaking him from his reverie.  He swipes it away and slinks off, tearing a hunk off and tossing it to Vex, waiting to see if the hellhound drops dead before taking a bite.  Overcome with the sudden seed of a notion, which rapidly grew into a twisted, rapacious weed, Mr. Nix becomes implacably certain he is being followed.  Glaring with mad, wild eyes at all around, he sees at least half a dozen people look his way.  All culpable--all watching, all spies, every one. He feels a sudden need to escape, to retreat to the safety of his own ramshackle abode.   He begins racing through the streets, pushing people aside as he winds and twists through the streets to escape from the ones who are trailing him.  Slipping into a patch of shadow, he waits until all is still around him, and there is no one to see him--to observe which way he went.  Making his way to the end of the alley, he breaks into a dead run for home, and woe betide any who should attempt to interfere.[/ic]

[ooc]Stealth:[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote] (One level of Grit applied)
Perception (to see if anyone is following him, or watching him): [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]
If any roll is needed for his running: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

He will attempt to make his way home in this manner.  If anyone approaches him, or seems to be following him, he will make an attack against them with his Hell's Torment power.  [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The crowd disperses with a murmur of mixed amusement and affront. Meanwhile, Nibs slinks deep into Hadric's bag, wheezes a wisp of smoke, and promptly falls into a deep torpor.

Soon, the street becomes silent. The dry, tickling brush of smoke still lingers, but the dawn breeze and riparian tang gently wash it away. As Hadric regards the scene, he sees no further clues. The humidor lays singed, but whole. The cigarillo pipe no longer gleams with aetheric puissance. Its hexes are spent, consumed and dissipated as the conflagration they caused.

Considering the dearth of evidence as well as the state of his locks, Hadric's mind wanders to a few coiffeurs of acceptable repute and expense.[/ic]

[ooc]Your hexsight does not reveal anything of note.

As for local hair-dressers that might fit your criteria, two leap to mind:

1. Monsieur Lerrard. Best known as a hairdresser of high-class courtesans, including those favored by magisters. Obsequious to nobles, and considers himself high-class and seeks patronage. He has a variety of apprentices underneath him, and is unsurprisingly a seller of wigs as well.

2. Farelige. Technically two hairdressers with the same (adopted?) name, differentiated by their monikers of Carmine and Perse. They work primarily with men, especially the sons of wealthy merchants. Cheaper than Lerrard, and perhaps more avant garde.

Both are in the Violet Ward.[/ooc]

 
 

[ic]Adrenaline courses through Catena's veins as the ghul leaps towards her.  She snarls, a feral growl more like the bark of a wolf than a noise made from human throat, and twists backwards, dropping the maiden-sword.  With a bestial grunt she attempts to grab the Ossifragant's "good" head and bring her knee upwards into the grave-spawn's chin.[/ic]

[ooc]Activating Bloodlust to boost her Might and Agility Edge to 2, Catena will employ 2 points of Grit (thus expending 2 points of Agility Pool) to her defense:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

She then applies another 2 points of Grit to her attack with her fists (medium bashing, expending 2 points of Might).  Both points of Grit will apply to her attack roll, rather than damage:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Might 0/13, Agility 5/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ooc]For my minor effect, I'll take the 2 bonus damage, for a total of 6 points of damage.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena's knee shatters her foe's jaw. The ghul crumples like a sack of rotten fish. Both heads lay maimed and still. A dull moan escapes, but the night-folk is otherwise silent and senseless.

Behind Catena, however, Jarrow begins to stir. Grotesquely, his neck begins to stitch itself back together with a hardening lattice of scab-scarabs. His runes continue to burn with a febrile heat and hue. He vomits blood, and slowly, impossibly, revivifies.[/ic]

[ic]Narrowing her dark pink eyes, Catena takes a moment to catch her breath, backing away from Jarrow and readying her hand crossbow.[/ic]

[ooc]I'll use one of my Recovery Rolls:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+2 : 5 + 2, total 7[/blockquote]

Recovery Rolls Left: 3

Pools (before Recovery):

Might 0/13, Agility 5/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ooc]I'll assign my Recovery points to bring my Pools up to the following:

Pools:

Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7

Hopefully I've put some distance between Catena and Jarrow.  If I get the chance to fire before Jarrow attacks I'll do so.[/ooc]

[ic]Miffed by the absence of evidence, and feeling vaguely offended, Hadric retrieves the humidor and the pipe, and sets out into the Violet Ward in search of Farelige. Hadric finds Lerrard's manner tedious, and in any case his work is a bit old-fashioned. A new style shall certainly rectify the day's poor start, he thinks.[/ic]

[ic]
Xavier takes advantage of the head start he's gotten on these thugs, darting round a few street corners before scuttling into cover behind a large billboard advertising a cabaret of burlesque delights. In this hiding place he watches and waits for his pursuers to round the last corner, hoping that they'll fail to detect him and instead continue to press forward and past his position.
[/ic]

[ooc]
Stealth check, applying Grit:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 8/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Mr. Nix]The streets are relatively quiet and sparsely traveled this morning. Even so, the ghul threads a maze that is fast-awakening with luckless laborers, poor souls rising to, or returning from, back-breaking toil. Their faces are soiled with the grime and glum of the Ebon Ward. A few scan the streets with apprehension, but most trudge on with downcast, listless eyes. Few seem to notice or paid heed to the furtive nightfolk as he dashes between the refuse-strewn shadows. Those who do, particularly those shoved by the neurotic grave-spawn, hound him with hateful gazes and shouted slurs. But none pursue him.

Mr. Nix' fears, nonetheless, seem justified when the ghul approaches his ramshackle abode. A wiry youth stands blocks his ingress. A cigarette hangs limply from his mouth, with a dozen others at his feet. Occasionally, the young man scans the streets, as if looking for someone.

His head snaps to attention, however, as he sees Mr. Nix bolt towards the building. The youth draws something from his duster, perhaps a gun? The ghul does not wait to see, but strikes the lad's mind with nightmarish hellscapes. The youth screams in horror, clutching his skull, and flees blindly down the alley.

The streets echo with screams, but Mr. Nix's path is clear. The nightfolk slinks into his hovel, grateful for the sanctuary from the rising sun. Vex follows, licking its jowls at the familiar aroma of fear, offal, and sin. Home, sweet home. [/ic]  

[ic=Catena]Jarrow vomits, snarls, then slowly rises, his neck still suturing itself back together with sanguine thread. His eyes roll wildly, then lock onto Catena and her readied crossbow. His maw opens, unleashing an inhuman shriek and a flickering proboscis-like tongue that hungrily tastes the air.[/ic]

[ooc]You get your attack, and then can take another round's action before he is upon you. DC 2 to hit.[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]
True to Xavier's design, the Nine Eyes' thugs overlook his hiding spot and continue their search in vain. After waiting to make sure the trio are long gone, the assassin moves to descend from his concealing perch, but freezes when he hears a raspy voice call from the shadows:

"Well done, wing-martyr."

Pivoting around, Xavier sees a strange nest crushed between the painted billboard and the roof of a high-rise brothel. Reams and reams of soiled news-rags, tattered prints, and molted feathers form a bowl-shaped haven. A withered jatayu squats in the center of the mildewed heap. His plumage is sickly, with one wing bent awkwardly, and his pate is wrinkled like a sun-burnt prune. An amber monocle adorns his gap-toothed countenance. He smiles widely, spits out a shard of pigeon marrow he was suckling, and speaks once more in his dry, dust-bellow voice:

"No need to rush off, no need to fret. Sampati will keep your secret."

He wheezes, then pats the side of his nest as if inviting you in.

"Sampati likes secrets; they're stories that have been steeped. Aged through discretion and silence. Good vintage not wasted on the common ear, but saved for the closest companion."

There is a quiet patience in the jatayu's avian eyes. A resignation, if not contentment, that stands in sharp contrast to Skein's manic avarice.[/ic]

[ic]Catena fires her hand crossbow towards the regenerating, proboscidean horror.[/ic]

[ooc]Oh shit, it's that Slake (I think!).  Which means Gobble probably isn't far off.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Pools:

Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7

I'll wait till the results are in to decide on what to do next.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The bolt dives into Jarrow's leg, causing the mad-man to lurch mid-stride. Violently, he rips the projectile from his flesh. By the time he drops the stained bolt, his leg has already scabbed over. Enraged and ravenous, he charges Catena.[/ic]

[ooc]Your turn, same DC to attack. Also make a DC 1 dodge.

As for that Slake, there is definitely a resemblance.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Hadric's stroll through the Violet Ward is placid. He arrives at Farelige's establishment, a narrow, third-story affair with a pseudo-elite clubhouse in its basement, without incident. Yet, as he approaches the bronze-wrought stairs, a gaggle of gala-masked youth block his path. The males are uniformly dressed in velvet-trimmed overcoats, drainpipe trousers, high-necked silk shirts, and brocade waistcoats. The few girls among them are adorned with drape jackets, straw hats, toreador pants, and dangling clutch-bags. At Hadric's approach, they look over the singed nobleman with blood-shot eyes as they pass around a pair of wine bottles and cigarettes.  

"Farelige's not up yet," one of the youth offers, as if answering your unspoken question.

"Must have been a wild night," a younger lad suggests.

"Or a lame one-," a girl counters as she digs into her elaborately embroidered clutch, "-if she actually went to sleep."

Her remarks brings a salvo of snickers and a click of the wine bottles.

"Which was your's?" another sallow-skinned girl asks, smiling as she eyes Hadric's singed raiment and locks.[/ic]

[ooc]I should note that today is Writhing, which in Skein's calendar follows Guising, a day marked by its parties, celebrations, and so forth. Basically, its like the city's hungover post-party day. Ironically, it's also the primary day for religious devotions among the few non-atheists in the city. Just to provide some temporal context.[/ooc]

[ooc]Where is the chandelier in reference to Slake?[/ooc]

[ic]"My nights never fail to delight, young miss! To sail upon the coruscating skies of the Ae-Tringe, held aloft but by the feral stare of a cloud-panther. To taste the most obscure vintage of sadness in the crystal-gardens of Ker-Iz in the good company of departed shadows half-formed, and not at all remembered. To experience the singular and sublime apprehension as one sits alone upon the gloaming plain, awaiting the curtain's rise and the soundless applause of the audience; never have I seen more enthusiasm for the dramatic art than was aroused at the conclusion of the opening act of the Gibbous Prince! Truly, I could hardly be more satisfied." Hadric replies. The girl doesn't seem to know what to make of his response, her brow furrowing. "Ah. But Farelige has yet to wake? This day conspires to victimize me. But if I must wake, then they must as well." he continues, shaking his head. "If you'll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, it is past time that business hours commence."[/ic]

[ooc]There are three, one of which is right between the two of you, a step to the left.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Whether charmed or confused by Hadric's reply, the loiters let him pass and ascend the narrow staircase. True to their word though, Farelige's door, a brass-knobed leather portal, is closed and locked.

Yet, as Hadric stands before the threshold, he hears something. Muffled and muted, but still discernible. A series of crashes punctuated by high-pitched shrieks[/ic]

[ic]At the sound of screaming Hadric is momentarily taken aback, but his body seems to be taking action regardless. Drawing his kneaf, he shoulder-checks the door, trying to break it down. He calls down to the loitering youths, mustering some authority in his tone: "If I'm not back in four minutes, call the watch! If I'm back in less then one, well, at least this will have been some amusement for you!"[/ic]

[ooc]Might check for door breaking, applying one level of grit: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Assuming success, Hadric will quickly proceed within in search of the source of the commotion.

Might: 11/13, Agility: 11[12]/14, Intellect: 6/9[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Hadric batters the door open. Rushing in, he sees a clutter of overturned chairs, shattered mirrors, torn wallpaper, and scattered hairdressing paraphernalia. At the center of the chaos is an ulotrichous, ramping beast. Shrouded in long, woolly hair and crowned with a nest of tortuous recurved horns, the thing thrashes wildly. It kicks over a wig-stand, bleats shrilly, and urinates over the ground.

Beside it, the Farelige sisters, unmasked and half-dressed in nightgowns, shriek and fret. Carmine attempts to salvage a knocked-over periwig, but soon becomes caught in a losing tug-of-war with the hairy beast. Perse, however, notes Hadric's entrance, and frantically pleads for help:

"Please, sir -the beast, stop it!"

As if to punctuate her cry, the capric creature tosses Carmine aside, then begins greedily devouring the once-fine wig. Carmine, meanwhile, picks up a nearby broom and begins whacking the beast over the head, but to no avail. Her stream of curses likewise fails to elicit a desired response. Perse shouts, her arms waving desperately:

"We need it alive!"

It is unclear whether she is speaking to Carmine or Hadric.[/ic]

[ic]Suddenly coming up short in his headlong rush into the room, the bizarre tableau triggers a strange pang of deja vu. Perhaps he'd dreamed this scene before? Hadric shakes his head, trying to clear it of oneiric cobwebs. "I - what? Right! But you owe me a haircut on the house for this, Farelige!" he declares, putting aside his kneaf and rolling up his sleeves in the blink of an eye. Hadric dives onto the hairy beast, his arms grasping, attempting to wrestle it into submission.[/ic]

[ooc]I guess this would be a might check. Hadric will apply grit again: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Might: 10/13, Agility: 11[12]/14, Intellect: 6/9[/ooc]

[ooc]Please make a dodge roll, MG.[/ooc]

[ooc][blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Hadric] As Hadric dives, the shaggy beast throws back its horns, and catapults the shreeva with demeaning ease. Hadric flies over a shrieking Perse and crashes into the previously last-intant mirror in the shop. A shower of glass, scissors, combs, and brushes falls over him.

The wooly goat-thing snorts, as if laughing, then continues chewing its pompadour wig with triumphant fervor.

Adding insult to injury, several loiters have raced upstairs, attracted to by the tumultuous sounds, and now watch with irreverent voyeurism. The Farelige, however, are far from amused at the continued destruction of their shop, and shout furiously at man, beast, and goggling youth.[/ic]

[ooc]You take 2 damage (after AC). DC to grapple the beast is 4, DC 3 to dodge its attacks. These DCs are both elevated because you're trying to do them unarmed and non-lethaly.[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric regains his feet and dusts himself off, picking a bloody shard of glass out of his forearm with a wince. "Look goat." he says. The beast snorts at him loudly and irreverently. "..Goat-thing" he reassesses. "This would be a lot easier for the both of us if you'd come along quietly. There's just no reason to be eating all this hair. Your stomach is going to be tied in knots, and that's a recipe for indigestion..." he continues softly, slowly edging his way closer to the beast. Hadric suddenly grabs for the creature again, a triumphant smile lighting up across his face.[/ic]

[ooc]Hadric's blood is up, and he's thoroughly determined to get this goat. If only he was aware of the irony. I'll apply two levels of grit to the grapple roll for 3 Might, and one level of grit to the dodge roll for 1 agility. (This is assuming dodge is necessary regardless of the outcome of the grapple.)

Grapple: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Dodge: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Might: 5/13, Agility: 10[11]/14, Intellect: 6/9[/ooc]

[ooc]For my major effect, I'll have the goat-thing be stunned. Probably out of awe for the amazing hold Hadric just smoothly pulled off.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The tables turn swiftly for Hadric and the hairy beast. The former latches hold of the latter, and flips it over in one deft maneuver. Stunned, the goat-thing bleats in shock.

"Tie it up!" a Farelige shouts. The other scrounges through the wreckage. "Where are the thrice-damned ribbons!" she yells, "I'll find it -just, just hold it a little longer!" The first helps the second. "Here!" "No, that's lace -it'll tear." "The chartreuse?" "If you can get it untangled." "Wait, I've got, no, too short..."[/ic]

[ooc]DC 3 to maintain hold.[/ooc]

[ic]"Any time now!" Hadric yells as the thing starts to struggle against his grasp.[/ic]

[ooc]Hadric is still determined to see this through. Using a point of grit for the hold.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Might: 4/13, Agility: 10[11]/14, Intellect: 6/9[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The goat-thing thrashes. It bites Haric painfully on the hand, but the man retains his grip. Infuriated, the beast defecates. It is messy... and Hadric is not spared.

Only after the odious affair ends do the Farelige emerge, long ribbon-strips in hand. They nimbly tie the ribbon around the creature's mouth, first muzzling it, then trussing its legs with silken fetters. It bucks and wobbles, but the beast is bond tightly.  

"Do you think it will hold?" Perse asks as she nervously backs away from the enraged animal.

"It'll hold," Carmine answers, wrinkling her nose at the stench that permeates both man and beast, "-the paduasoy is corded, and the faille, why it's woven thick enough to stop an arrow."

"And the tabinet?"

"Thrown in for good measure."

So reassured, Perse turns to Hadric. She has a willowy build, all limbs and fingers. Her eponymous, lilac-hued hair is tied up into a half-raveled bun, and a disheveled nightgown hangs limply from her shoulders. She regards Hadric with a gentle smile that touches her honey-cast eyes.

"Thank you, truly. I don't know what we would have done without you."

Carmine, meanwhile, stalks to the door and slams it shut on the noses of the still-goggling youth. She leans against the cool leather, then exclaims with exaggerated volume, "Yeah, those clowns have more grease in their spine than bone." She runs her tattooed hands through her bright-red hair and sighs heavily as she takes in the mass-destruction of her shop.

"Byleth's hoary sack," she moans, "Just, just look at this mess."

"I need a smoke," Carmine says to no one in particular, her dark eyes rung by sleep-smeared shadow.  

Perse, however, pays her no mind. All of her attention rests on Hadric. "However can we repay you, good sir -and oh! Your hand! Why the brute bit you -and oh, your clothes!"[/ic]

[ooc]You take another 2 damage, and your clothes are now soiled with capric feces. Ah, the wages of chivalry.[/ooc]

[ic]For a fleeting moment, Mr. Nix allows himself the soft emotion of relief, but within minutes, his mind is once again reeling with worries, plots, and tangled webs of deceit.  They know where we live.  They will be coming for us.  We must know what we are dealing with.  Mr. Nix grabs Vex about the ears and stares him in those eyes like coal embers.  

"It is time."  He pulls the silver votive chain from a deep pocket in the recesses of his coat.
"Oh no master" the demon whines.
"Shut up!" Nix snaps at the hellhound, and begins winding the chain around its neck.  Vex, though apparently not physically harmed by this, howls and bays piteously, its ribs heaving with the effort.  "It tells us what it knows about Byleth" the diabolist commands, then suspecting trickery from the hound, adds "What it's seen, what it hears, and what is only rumor.  It tells us all of that."[/ic]

[ooc]Demonology Check to know "Byleth" by name.  I would argue that between general witchcraft and my demonology from my focus, He has mastery at this, but it's at least expertise.  He also uses a point of grit for this action.  [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Might 7      Agility 9/10      Intellect 13/15[/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier stands motionless and stone-faced, considering the words of this odd bird-man. A mild grin flashes on his face as he makes up his mind, and he clambers nimbly up to the jatayu's nest. "Well then, Sampati. I am known as Xavier. You say that you like secrets -- got any good ones about those Nine-Eyes' I just had to shake off my back?"

While he doesn't expect to gain much by chatting up the bedraggled avian, Xavier figures that it's worth a try. He'd hoped to learn something useful about the Nine-Eyes' activities by shadowing the thugs, but with those efforts having gone to waste he might as well spend a moment or two listening to whatever gossip this jatayu would share.
[/ic]

[ooc]Make a persuasion/diplomacy check, Ghostman.[/ooc]

[ooc]Are the chandeliers suspended by ropes, or chains?[/ooc]

[ic=Mr. Nix]Vex yowls. It convulses, snarls, and quivers. But to no avail. It cannot resist its master's command. Syllable by syllable, the hellhound's secrets are torn unwillingly from its frothing lips.[/ic]

[ooc]Combining what Mr. Nix already has heard with Vex's disclosures, Mr. Nix 'knows' the following:

Prince Byleth is a demon of great renown and speculation amongst the diabolists of Skein, and beyond as some would argue. Some say the archfiend was the familiar of Orlando Petrifax. Others suggest that Byleth's presence in Skein predates the Mad Magister, that he was first summoned and bound by the Moth-Kings or the entities to which they sold their souls; either way, he served as a royal messenger, a deliverer of secrets, a spirit who flitted between the monarchs' cocoons, crooning and hearkening to their sibyllic decrees. Others say Byleth was a naught but the infernal jester of a long-forgotten hellish warlord from the Membrane Wars. Some say Byleth was all of these, others say that such is slander and misdirection.

Most, however, agree that Byleth rebelled and now haunts the sewerscapes of Skein. They say he is tied to the Yellow Dragons, one of the four major syndicates. They say he is their ruler or their most miserable of slaves. They say he is dined on by a squabbling assembly of imps -the Diet of the Jaundiced Assembly- devoured each day and vomited out each night. A grisly, eternal feast, succulent, enticing, tempting, but sickening, ill-sitting, and never-filling.[/ooc]  

[ooc]One chain per chandelier, Steerpike.[/ooc]

[ooc]
Persuasion/diplomacy check, applying Grit:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 8/14 (1), Intellect 10/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic]Catena eyes the chandeliers but decides against attempting to shoot one down - the chains klook to sturdy to pierce with a crossbow bolt.  Instead she drops her crossbow and readies her chain, sweeping it round in an arc to gather momentum before lashing out at the oncoming creature.[/ic]

[ooc]I'll apply a level of Grit to my attack (with Edge and Bloodlust, no Pool expenditure):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Sampati's wrinkled lips curl into a grin: "Ah, yes, the Sog-Boys are..."

He trails off, then begins riffling through his nest's debris, occasionally stopping to rub his gibbous spine. Eventually, he selects a mildew-painted newsrag and examines it with his horn-ringed monocle.

"Yes, the Sog-Boys are a wicked trio of wingless apes. Bruisegut, Bolefinger, and Blacksocks. Simple and brutal, like the cudgels they bear. They serve the Mustachioed Queen and his crew of four-limbed spiders. They fish the dry rivers, catching gadflies and rival predators as they both feed and protect their wet-house web."

"Bruisegut is the fattest, yet most fleet with his fists. He prefers to lay them on the little ones. He pays them for their tears, but makes them earn each and every faded shell."  

"Then there is Bolefinger, the salt-haired. As the eldest, he considers himself the leader, yet his wisdom is rarely hearkened by the more youthful pair. He has a bottle filled with gin and floating eyes. He never sips it, just stares when the others aren't watching."

"Last is Blacksocks, the thin. As the leanest, he is the hungriest, and thus the most dangerous. He loves a lady across the gulch, a parasol princess who conceals her age with two masks, one of iron, one of paint. He brings her gifts, packages wet and hidden, but they are never opened."

"Like all good subjects, they hate, fear, and adore their queen. And like all good queens, he rarely sees them, save to let them lick his dirty boots. And so they serve from afar, whilst the Harpy-Hand plays the gatekeeper and voice of the violet crown."

His tale spent, Sampati stuffs the rotted newsrag back into his nest, then flashes another tooth-scarce grin.

"The Sog-Boys know of Sampati, but not what he knows. They do not come to Sampati's nest. If they did, they would not listen. They would not share. They would only speak with their knuckled tongues."[/ic]  

[ic=Catena]The chain crashes into Jarrow. Its blow stymies his charge, sets him off-balance, and breaks a handful of his ribs. One bone juts sickeningly from his torso, but it swiftly begins to slip back beneath his skin.[/ic]

[ooc]Your turn. DC 2 to hit, DC 1 to dodge.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena attempts to loop the chain round Jarrow's neck and cinch it tight strangling him.[/ic]

[ooc]Here's my dodge, to which I'll apply one level of Grit (no Pool cost from Edge and Bloodlust):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Once again I'll apply a level of Grit (no Pool cost from Edge and Bloodlust) to my attack:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Pools:

Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ooc]If I can decide on a minor effect from my 5, I'd like to ensure that I get my chain over Jarrow's neck.  My hope here is that while he can regenerate normal wounds he still needs air to breathe, so if I can keep the chain tight, I should eventually kill him.  That's the plan, anyway.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The chain pulls taught against Jarrow's ravaged neck. A vicious struggle ensues, with Jarrow thrashing madly as Catena maintains her breath-stealing grip, even as she evades his claws and flailing tongue-dart. In doing so, however, the pair fall to the ground, tumbling over and around the ghul's body and the still-imbedded executioner's sword.[/ic]

[ooc]DC 3 to maintain your hold.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena grits her teeth, maintaining a grim hold on the chain and pulling it tight, remembering the faces of all the men and women and things she has strangled, the fights in the slave-pits, the angry red marks left by her fingertips or by her chains.[/ic]

[ooc]I'll apply a level of Grit as per usual to the roll to maintain.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Pools:


Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ooc]What times are places like the Sutured Cabaret active?  Would Mr. Nix be more likely to find Shiqq (and perhaps Aerugo Attercop) at night?  Or since the Ebon Ward has such a high gravespawn population, would it operate more on that schedule ("Nightlife" becomes "day-life" since Daytime is for gravespawn as night-time is for the quick)?  Trying to plan out what my next move would be. [/ooc]

[ooc=Mr. Nix]Skein is overwhelmingly populated by humans, and the vast majority of Skein's population resides in the Ebon Ward. Although the vast majority of Skein's grave-spawn reside in the Ebon Ward, they still form a paltry minority there compared to the quick.

One consequence of this, is that Skein operates largely what we might consider a 'normal' cycle of activity and rest. Being a massive city, counter-cylcles and exceptions exist in spades. Grave-spawn often fall into both.

As for Mandible Clubs, most are open all day and all night to syndicate members. Otherwise, they tend to operate as 'night-clubs'. The Scabaret is no exception. Yves is generally always there (but is not always accessible to others, be they members or outsiders). Shiqq may or may not be present and available at any one time. He, like other Repoussé Boys, are often out working streets and attending to syndicate business.

Does that answer your questions?[/ooc]

[ooc]Yes, it does.  Reply coming soon.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The chain grinds into Jarrow's already ravaged skin. Flesh rips, spilling dark blood that moves with fell animacy. It falls on Catena's face and slithers down her chain and tensed sinews.

Catena, caught up in a feral barrage of strangulatory memories, almost fails to notice as Jarrow's neck impossibly twists, turning till his nigh-asphyxiated face is level with hers. His tongue-tentacle snakes out, savagely kissing her cheek. It attempts to burrow, to hungrily gorge on her blood. Reflexively, she bats away the ravenous proboscis, but the act causes her grip to slip from the blood-slick chain. It flies from her hands, but still remains wound around Jarrow's neck, imbedded in skin and scarabaean ichor.

Jarrow gasps, then screams.[/ic]

[ooc]Dodge roll, DC 1. If you attack, DC 2. Attempting to grab hold of the chain and resume strangling is now a DC 4. Also recall both of you are still prone.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena rolls and grabs for the chain, attempting to pull it tight once more.[/ic]

[ooc]Defense roll with one level of Grit (Edge/Bloodlust reduces cost to 0):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Roll to get the chain again, applying one level of Grit (Edge/Bloodlust reduces cost to 0):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7

Question - I'm using Edge and Bloodlust correctly, right?[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena grabs the gore-slick chain and pulls it taught, choking Jarrow's scream into a pitiful gasp. His eyes bulge, his tongue and claws flail, but Catena's grip is too tight, her scar-crossed skin too thick.

Starved for air, his blood, once a burning crimson, turns a bruise purple. As it darkens, it loses its fell power. Flesh-hexes dim. His tongue retracts. His claws shrink. The scarabs fall still and slip beneath his wounds to sleep.  The monster fades, and the man finally resurfaces. For the briefest of moments, Jarrow's eyes -now all-too human, all-too weak- stare at Catena with pitiful confusion.  Then, the doors of unconsciousness close fast. Death waits in the wing.

"Hold," Guin calls. She stands over the knot of blood-stained bodies, having approached unnoticed during the struggle's fury. Her pepperbox rests heavy in her hand, the hammer cocked back and ready to fire. For a moment, Catena thinks the gun is aimed at her, but then notices the barrel is pointed squarely at Jarrow.

"Stay your hand, Catena," she repeats. [/ic]

[ooc]Yep, you're doing it right. The archetype is a combat beast.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena looks up, teeth bared in a half-feral rictus of bloody-minded determination, then slackens her grip at Guin's insistence.  She gets to her feet, dusting herself off.  Her grip is relaxed, but she hasn't yet unwrapped the chain from Jarrow's neck, or released it from her grasp.  Her movements are those of a wary animal, suspicious and deliberate.

"I take it I have earned the contract," she says simply.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]Guin nods. A tight, deliberate gesture.[/ic]

[ic]
Xavier squats patiently on the edge of Sampati's nest as the birdman recites the lowdown. When it ends he nods his head. "My thanks for this bit of news. If I get around to meddle in these Sog-Boys' business, I'll be sure to let you know of any interesting details I might uncover. For now, I bid you adieu." With those words he descends from the jatayu roost down to the street level, to make his way back to his kip in the Copper Ward.
[/ic]

[ic]"Alright," Cetana says, cracking her neck and loosening her joints after the fight.  "What can you tell me about Xalmas Rasch?  This man has gone missing?  Kidnapped?"[/ic]

[ic=Xavier]The day still burns bright as Xavier makes his way across the bustling streets. He needles his way through the crowds, reaching his tenement in the Copper Ward, a tall affair of variegated brick, barred windows, and patinated balusters known as Ravel Row. From the myriad balconies, a few residents watch his approach with placid disinterest. Otherwise, the streets are empty save for an old busker and his foxfolk assistant who bicker over how to best -or most cheaply- repair a dilapidated crank organ. A familiar metallic tang fills the air, and the cobbled streets hum with the distant, if inexorable, drumming of automated factories.[/ic]

[ooc]Tis your home, so I'll let you describe it and whatever activities you wish to do therein.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Guin fires her pepperbox -a viscous net erupts from the barrel and entombs Jarrow in a constricting tangle of thickening webs. She then turns to Catena and replies with the razor-sharp edge of resentment:

"Xalmas Rasch was born heir to his family's fortunes, but he squandered it gambling, whoring, and imbibing all manner of addictive substances. His appetites led him to associate with men of both low character and birth. His behavior shamed his family, and no respectable woman was willing to demean herself by taking his hand. So Xalmas was disowned, and his younger sister, Ylphine, responsibly assumed the mantle her brother spurned. Since then, Xalmas has repeatedly disappeared into the bowels of the Ebon Ward and worse, only to reappear time and again, sometimes sick, sometimes starved, but always far from sober."

"His most recent disappearance was a week ago, a day before Ylphine's burial. Before he departed, he promised Lord Elphias that he would return in time for the young master's assumption of the family's estate, including governance of the Night-Marrow Merchant Company. He broke that promise. His young lordship, however, believes that Xalmas' absence was... involuntary."

"Initial inquiries revealed that Xalmas was seen recently in the Ebon Ward, accompanied by a ghul streetwalker and a small-time fence named Pieng-Luc. The trustworthiness of such reports, however, is questionable. Thus far, the City Watch has proved unable or unwilling to help. The task then falls to you to succeed where the others have failed."

Guin holsters her firearm, reaches into her frockcoat, and hands Catena a faded daguerreotype. It depicts a middle-aged man, dressed in well-heeled attire, but marked by a wildness of hair and gaze. A pair of mensur scars runs down his left cheek, salaciously peering from the edges of a gilded half-mask.

"Shortly before he was disowned," Guin explains, "His hair has grayed and his cheeks have sunken, but the image rings true –even if its subject does not."

Squaring eyes with the albino mercenary, Guin adds with finality:

"Consider your contract signed, Catena. Now fulfill it."[/ic]

[ooc]Unless she has further questions she wishes to press, Catena is free to go[/ooc]

[ic]Without further words, Catena departs from the Night-Marrow Merchant Company headquarters and walks out into Ossein Court.  She breathes in the crisp dawn air, the smells of the city.  Even the sulphurous fumes of the Crimson Ward smell sweet as perfume to a nose as inured to stench as hers.

She studies the daguerrotype. The filthy tenements of the Ebon Ward are familiar to her.  This Pieng-Luc, however, is not.  First she must find the fence and see what he knows about the disappearance of this libertine.  She scans the Court and surrounds for a rickshaw or other cheap conveyance.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]In the wan light of Writhing, the Court and its surrounding streets are relatively empty. Nevertheless, daybreak reveals a nearby rickshaw worker, a back-bent man dressed in soot-hued robes and a conical hat. He fumbles with a flintlock lighter, cursing quietly as he singes his shaking fingers. Catching Catena's gaze, though, he swiftly stows his lighter and half-flacid cigarette and hustles over, green-lacquered rickshaw in tow.

"Where to, first?" the man inquires, flashing a sallow grin beneath his wispy veil.[/ic]

[ic]"Ah, certainly it is but a scratch, Miss Perse. I would ably earn it twice more in service to your need." Hadric says, somehow managing to maintain a modicum of dignity in his current state. Nibs hisses in laughter from the pack discarded haphazardly on the floor. Hadric kicks it lightly, eliciting a serpentine grunt. "However.. I seem to be in quite a state. Perhaps a bath and a change of clothes? And of course I could not turn down the elegant ministrations of the renowned Farelige upon my singed and wounded locks."[/ic]

OOC: Sorry this took so long! Writing on a phone isn't the easiest, so I might have to leave my part a bit brief, at least until we get to servant-shopping.

[ic]"The Ebon Ward," Catena growls, squinting even in the meagre light of dawn.  Her eyes - large, pink, and sensitive - have never handled sunlight well, after years of darkness and half-light, a world of sweat and grasping hands, of pain and teeth and the whips of her arachnoid overseers.

She runs through a mental list of establishments, hide-outs, and rookeries, wondering where she should begin her search.[/ic]

[ic=Hadric]Perse's honeyed eyes alight with pleasure at Hadric's reply, and in short order, she whisks him away from the wrecked salon. She draws a bath, strips him of his soiled raiment, and washes his skin, both broken and unblemished. As Hadric soaks in her claw-footed tub and its salt-perfumed waters, Perse tackles the man's maimed locks, occasionally sipping and sharing a thin, but serviceable, vintage of 459 C.R.. Nibs, who remains still somewhat sodden, is gifted two equally delicious dishes: a half-eaten box of liquored chocolates and a nigh-overflowing ash-tray.

By the time Hadric reemerges, he is adorned with an avante-garde quiff, slick with brandy-scented pomade, and a melange outfit of middle-class, but clean, garments. At his entrance, Carmine halts her significant, if incomplete, attempt at restoring the salon. She looks over his hair, sucks down another cigarette, and gives a congratulatory nod to her partner.

The goat-thing, however, begins to thrash and bleat at Hadric's return -prompting Carmine to swiftly beat the still-trustled beast with her broom until it settles.

It's hard to recall exactly how it happens, but as Hadric prepares to depart, the Farelige clumsily relate how they happened upon the beast -and how they would be ever-so grateful if a certain gentleman relieved them of it...[/ic]

[ooc]The girls claim that a gilt-tongued trader, one Otto Shamgarr of Crepuscle, talked them into buying the goat-thing to harvest its hair for their wigs, but failed to mention how vicious the thing was. After a night of cavorting, they returned home, where the beast was delivered, fell asleep, and awoke to it having burst its cage... and the rampage that ensued. In exchange for seemingly sincere, if vague, promises of free services at the salon and other favors, they ask Hadric to return the creature to Otto's barge, the Brinesaddle (last docked in the Tangerine Ward), and get a refund of their payment, a sum of 300 crowns.

Note: Such a task can easily be declined.[/ooc]  

[ic=Catena]The rickshaw worker nods obediently, then takes off at a brisk pace, hauling Catena away from the murderous splendors of the Crimson Ward and into the squalid embrace of the Ebon.[/ic]  

[ooc]Make an Intellect-based roll to see what places she knows that might be leads on finding the fence (who I think you said you would look for first?).

In interest of time, Catena is aware of the following individuals/places given your roll equals or exceeds the following value:

2. One of your previous contacts in the Orchid-Eaters, one Ngo-Shenn may know of this Pieng-Luc.

3. Yorian is another fence, who may or may not know Pieng-Luc. Yorian is known for frequenting the Foetid Crocodile in the Indigo Ward, but allegedly lives in the Ebon Ward.

4. Yorian lives in the disease-ridden sprawl known as the Harrow-House.  

5. Guin said Pieng-Luc was questioned by the authorities which suggests that the Watch may know more about him and his whereabouts. You have a tenuous relationship with a crooked Watchman who patrols the Ebon Ward, one Red Mei. You don't know where Red Mei is now, but her Ebon Ward landlord might.

6. At this time, Red Mei patrols the intersection of Chigger Lane and Mooncalf Tangle.[/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier lounges in his cleanly albeit cramped apartment, which also doubles as a small workshop and lab. He spends a long while recuperating after the morning's stressful events, pondering how to proceed. He figures that it'll be useless to attempt entry through the Dollhouse's basements doors; seeing as they are guarded and bolted shut from the inside, and he hasn't acquired anywhere near enough information to convincingly imitate a porter. The side alley door doesn't seem much of a better option, and going in through the main entrance would be lunacy. Then an idea occurs to him. The roof. There might be something like a skylight window up there. I could reach it by the thiefs' highway, too, avoiding the street level patrols. Even if there turns out to be no rooftop access, he'll still have the option of dropping down to the alley to try and break the side door.

Since his second attempt will necessarily run close to the end of the day -- the deadline for the mission -- Xavier anticipates that he probably won't have time to locate Tsin-Leirre within the dollhouse. Better to just set fire on the building, burn down the whole place. Arson, if successful, would also have the effect of making the hit appear like an accident. The only problem is that he currently lacks suitable equipment to make a fast-spreading fire. His first order of business, he figures, will be to appropriate such materials.

Having finished resting, Xavier changes to a new set of disguise, a nondescript lower-class citizen of a decidedly different appearance compared to his previous guise. In this attire he set on his sidequest to acquire some pyrotechnic implements.
[/ic]

[ooc]
Stat pools:
Might 9/10 (0), Agility 8/14 (1), Intellect 10/12 (0)

Two recovery rolls:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 2 + 1, total 3[/blockquote]
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 6 + 1, total 7[/blockquote]

How do I distribute the points from recovery rolls? Does each roll apply wholly to a single pool or can I split the points? If it's the former case, I'll apply these rolls to Agility and Intellect.
[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric idly strokes his expertly coiffed quiff as Perse and Carmine relate their tale. He favors Nibs with a questioning glance. The demon simply shrugs - an ordinary gesture made extraordinary when performed without shoulders. "I cannot indeed rightly leave you alone in this unfortunate predicament, misses Farelige." He says, giving the goat-thing an unsavory stare. "Nibs and I shall endeavor to do our best on your behalf." He continues, sketching a half-bow. The demon nods

"Yessss. Our very best! For tasty ashes and chocolates and... unsssspecified favorsss." Nibs hisses, winking at Perse. The serpent crawls up Hadric, gracelessly depositing itself into already-shouldered pack. Hadric eyes the trussed beast warily. "Perhaps you have a cart?" he asks, considering his route to the Tangerine ward.[/ic]

Hadric gallantly accepts the task, and shall make his way to the Brinesaddle, goat in tow. Additionally, I'd like for him to have taken his first and second rests while being bathed and coiffed. I'll roll for that momentarily when I figure out what to roll. Also, is there any bonus to them for being taken while being pampered? >_>

[ooc]Recovery rolls:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 1 + 1, total 2[/blockquote]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 6 + 1, total 7[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Upon exiting his abode, Xavier finds Ravel Row much as he left it, save that the sounds of quarreling come not from busker-organists but from sidewalk draught-players debating the 'loss' of the Adumbral War.[/ic]

[ooc] You can divide the recovery roll points among your pools as you wish. Also, since you have mastery in disguise, you can either choose to not roll, and get the effective result of 3, or roll if you want to see if you get higher.

As for arson-aiding materials, Xavier is aware of a certain cache due to his syndicate connections. Supposedly, a radical political group known as Faminites have been planning to burn down a section of the Ebon Ward in protest of its terrible living conditions. Supposedly, they have a cache of lady's lace phosphorus stored in ether wax designed to evaporate in the sunlight and expose the incendiary agent (The Brass Skulls knows since they were the ones who stole/brought/smuggled it from either one of the Collegia or rivals of the Annealed Brethren). You don't know their target, but the Faminites were last storing the dangerous materials in a disease-ridden sprawl known as Harrow-House.[/ooc]  

[ic=Hadric]Echoes of gratitude follow Hadric as he departs the Farelige. A velocipede-hitched cart is summoned, and soon thereafter, Hadric, Nibs, and the slavering beast are taken to the Tangerine Ward.

There, the morning markets bustle with the cries of costermongers selling candied wasps, quince-brandies, broiled ostrich flanks, and more. Closer to the shore, fishmongers haggle over the price of pickled sticklebacks, stuffed batagur shells, and abalone pies. River-captains off-load bushels of green-striped crabs, spider-cray, and lumpfish roe. 

Amidst the riparian and mercantile traffic, the Brinesaddle waits. A mid-sized trawler with folded sails in the fashion of Crepuscle, the ship rocks gently, lit by a string of faint glow-globes. A pair of guards patrol the decks, clad in varnished splint-mail and carrying an elyctic man-catcher and glass-bolt crossbow. Their visored gaze shifts between the ship's rusted gangplank and its canvas-covered cargo. One crate-shaped bulk in particular holds their attention. It stands apart near the aft, a tangle of wires slipping from the cloth, attaching to a voltaic battery that languidly hums in the moist air.

Seeing Hadric approach, however, the guard with the crossbow blocks the gangplank and demands to know his business, impassively adding that Otto is resting and not entertaining visitors till dusk.[/ic]

[ic]Hadric nods in commiseration. "Ah. Yes. I see, I see. But I am no mere visitor. Please, allow me to put your mind at ease, most dutiful of guardsmen. I am Hadric Beyam Phel-Nirian, and I represent the interests of a customer of your own employer: Miss Perse and Miss Carmine Farelige." he gestures with some disapproval at the trussed beast. "I have been vested with full authority as concerns this matter. I am here to speak with Mr. Shamgarr that satisfaction might be obtained. Please inform him that an urgent matter of business awaits his aquiline attention."[/ic]

[ooc]Make a persuasion check, DC 3 for you due to your expertise.[/ooc]

[ooc]Persuasion: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Current Stats: Might -10/13, Agility - 10[11]/14, Intellect - 7/9[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Whether by tone or title, Hadric's words sway the guard. He bids the sheevra wait, then withdrawals into the ship's cabin. He remerges several minutes later and invites Hadric aboard. With his companion's aid, the guard pulls an empty cage from the canvas collection and stows the goat-thing inside, cutting its bands once it is safely secured. So 'freed', the beast indignantly bleats and bashes its horns against its new prison.

"Come; Otto will see you," the first guard politely beckons to Hadric, then follows behind as he directs the nobleman below deck, crossbow readied.

Together, they pass by a crowded chamber, filled with scar-muscled sailors. Lit by dim, smoky candles, the place reeks of sweat and old blood. The sailors bandy tails of old hunts and voyages, whilst speculating whether their next marks will be spore-wolves or cinder-apes.

Past the reek and rabble, the guard directs Hadric to a private cabin, modest in size, but filled with accoutrements of wealth. Bloodwood beads dangle from the teak walls, mingling with chairs covered in albino skink-skin, and a gilded gramophone beside a glyph-marked bowl containing a two-faced, glimmering anglerfish.  

"Welcome, Hadric Beyam of Phel-Nirian," a small man says. Dark skinned with a smile framed by a turquoise-beaded mustache, the man reclines in a chaise longue, shoeless but dressed in a pin-striped sack-suit and a massive turban of damp silk. He twirls a single gibber-pence between his fingers, but nods at one of the skink-hide chairs. "I am Otto Shamgarr, and I believe you would like to propose a deal."[/ic]

[ooc]Intellect check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Shifty street-husksters, two-pence pickpockets, and grimy-faced guttersnipes. Catena visits them all, shaking down her familiar circle of gossip-mongers and contacts in the Ebon Ward. But none know of Vleng-Luc or Xalmas -or at least where to find them. Suggestions are offered, guesses are made, but the leads are cold and cluttered with dead-ends. Daylight burns, hours are squandered in fruitless chases.

Following the last desperate lead, Catena attends a clandestine political gathering in a fire-gutted cellar, beneath the Rot-Briquet Slums.  "He'll come, he always comes," a gap-toothed crone repeatedly promises Catena, but time passes, with no sign of the man. The crowd, heatedly whispering in Hellspeak, eventually fractures into polemic factions: Sansculottes arguing for the forceful abolishment of the Parliament, Isocrats trying to sway people to support a second Parliament for, and of, the common-born, Miscegenationists, Black Ague Socialites, Faminites, and more.

The fence never shows, though. After an hour slips away, Catena gives up hope and turns her back on the foreign, sectarian debates. Yet, before she reaches the surface and her waiting rickshaw, a shout ripples through the crowd, instantly silencing the bickering reformists.

"The Watch!"  

Panic. Most dash for the stairs, but the way soon becomes blocked by the clatter of spear-swords, cudgels, and the keening cry of Watchmen whistles.[/ic]  

[ooc]Welcome to Nat 1 World.

You may attempt to force you way up through the crowd (DC 4), potentially breaking through (Might check) or evading (Agility check) the unknown number of Watchmen above. Alternatively, you notice the following with a sight-based perception roll (Intellect based) that equals or exceeds:

DC 2: [spoiler]Some of the crowd are rushing away from the stairs, where they are trying to open a grate that leads to the sewers.[/spoiler]

DC 5: [spoiler]Nigh-hidden behind some charred crates, a dumbwaiter sits. Whether it still works is unknown, but it could fit a person with some maneuvering.[/spoiler] [/ooc]

[ooc]Perception roll:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Raised in Dolmen's troglodytic pits, Catena watches the scrambling, panic-stricken masses with a dispassionate calm. Placidly, she inhales the fear-stench, ignores the gloom of swiftly-dimmed lanterns, and notes the ash-smeared dumbwaiter, the slowly yielding grate, but also the forms of those who best control the chaos, the true leaders of rabble. She may not know their names, but she is sure to remember those figures, regardless of their veils.[/ic]  

[ic]Catena scrambles swiftly for the dumbwaiter, hunched over, keeping herself low.  She crams herself into the tiny elevator, the cramped conditions eased by her small size and compact posture.  She operates the lift, hoping to emerge on a higher floor.[/ic]

[ic]
Xavier heads for the Harrow-House, determined to risk both the place's infestation of maladies and attracting the ire of the Faminites should he manage to locate and plunder some lady's lace phosphorus.
[/ic]

[ooc]
I forgo the roll and take 3 on my disguise.

Stat pools after recovery:
Might 10/10 (0), Agility 14/14 (1), Intellect 12/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The dumbwaiter groans in protest -complaining of long disuse, fire-born injuries, and Catena's weight- but it slowly carries her away from the tumult. A floor or two later, and the sound of keening Watch-whistles and bone-crunching cudgels becomes muffled and blessedly distant.

Soot showers Catena as she exits the precariously swaying dumbwaiter. Greasy char clings to the scorched walls of what once may have been a tenement or office. Overhead, a half-melted chandelier hangs like a stalactite of slag. Burnt doorways and cinder-blackened staircases create a fire-wrecked maze. Ash stirs with each step, creating clouds of suffocating particles. Needle-thin fingers of light pierce the gloom, slipping between the cracks of boarded up windows -windows that have been boarded up from the outside.

Something else, however, stirs in the ruin.

A terrible choking heralds its approach. Entombed in soot, its black-charred feet dangle lifeless above the floor as it glides forward. Burnt fingers reach for Catena, their stumps cracked and crisp. Smoke spills from ash-stained lips and eye-sockets. The thing wretches, gasps, and chokes on the suffocating vapors. Sensing Catena's living breath, it surges forward! [/ic]

[ooc] Your turn.

With a DC 2 Intellect check, you know:

[spoiler]It's a geist, but you don't know what kind.[/spoiler]

With a DC 4 Intellect check, you know:

[spoiler]It's an ashgeist. They are particularly dangerous because their infection is spread when living creatures breathe their asphyxiating smoke-breath. They are drawn to the 'uncontaminated' breath of the living as well as their warmth.[/spoiler]

[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Suitably disguised to blend into the squalid press, Xavier arrives at the Harrow-House. A towering monument to Harlequin-Gothic architecture as well as the hubris of the Crepuscle merchant-princess who built it, Harrow-House is a sprawling nest of checkered spires, crumbling buttresses, and cracked tracery. Refuse and soiled laundry plaster its manifold arches, ribbed vaults, and shattered remnants of stained glass windows. Rusted over, clogged privy pipes cause an army of gargoyles to languidly drool offal-like sludge on the unwary below. A sour rankness infests the air.

Yet, the House is anything but desolate. Mobs of poverty-stricken squatters haunt its multitudinous chambers. Drug peddlers, quack-salvers, and deranged philosophers squabble over defaced vestibules and tapestry-molded vestries, whilst their pustule-marked disciples moan, puke, and rut in once-palatial ballrooms and bedchambers. Flea-ridden urchins prey upon the sodden and sick, retreating to their dizzying perches and spire-topped sanctuaries.  

Xavier moves amongst them, adopting their mien with long-practice skill. They eye him with half-lidded gazes, but otherwise brush past him with torpid shuffling; hacking, scratching, and oozing from a slurry of contagions.

Nevertheless, Harrow House -and the disease-wracked throng that inhabits it- is vast, and Xavier's time is limited.[/ic]  

[ooc]Intellect check first:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]Catena snarls and backs away - she has no time for this.  She searches quickly for the nearest exit from the room and dashes for it, evading the ashgeist as best she can![/ic]

[ic=Catena]Catena crashes through a maze of burnt-out rooms. The geist relentlessly pursues. Boarded-up windows and bricked-up staircases block her escape. Worse, she awakens a host of other grave-spawn: hacking, smoke-spewing, charred corpses that clutch at her. Their pestilent breathe infects the already unclean air, clinging smoke attempts to rob sight and life.

The geists mindlessly drive her. They corner her in a room, barren save for a barred window and  a fire-blackened safe.[/ic]   

[ooc]There are at least 6 geists. Make a Might defense roll vs disease as well as an Agility defense roll.[/ooc]

[ic=The Appointed Hour]A silent soiree. A ballroom bathed in dim mirrors. Cadavers mingle, wordless and still. Their clothes, obituary clippings, wrapped like milden bandages, sallow with age.  Wine-glasses rest in their hands, but none drink. 

Alisandre stands in their midst. A glass presses against her pyre-mangled fingers, tired and heavy. In its bowels, fat, glistening cocoons squirm. Their tremors cause ripples of gangrenous light to shudder and slither in the oppressive air. One by one, the pupae erupt from their silken tombs: opaque folds, dust-hued antennae. Shaking off their greenlit afterbirths, the imagos rise, revealing themselves as quasi-translucent moths, resembling living shards of shaved alabaster. They gently infest Alisandre's clothes, wreathe her head in a halo of garouched shadows performing a silent danse macabre.

But a murmur disturbs the dance, mars the silence. As one, the moths drop, shattering like dusty icicles against the ground. The rag-bound cadavers turn and stare.

The murmur continues, grows bolder. It comes from Alisandre's glass: a final cocoon, its captive struggling to free itself. Its banging becomes incessant, deafening in the silence. Something calls her.

She reaches down, into the slurry of rent cocoons. He fingers brush against the last chrysalis: it is warm. Warm where all else is cold. It speaks, where all else is silent. At her touch, a seam of silk unravels. Inside, half-hidden by the ruptured skein, a fleshy thing moves, murmurs.

They are lips. Her mother's lips, actually. And they speak to her, mumbling ever louder, every clearer:

"Wake up, my darling."

The lips croon. The glass cracks.

"Wake up, dearest; the Undertaker arrives."

The lips plead. The mirrors shatter.

"Wake up; he's here! You must trick him to believe you're not dead!"

The lips shout. The ballroom implodes.

Alisandre feels the chamber collapse into her heart, buffeting her with its sudden destruction. It rocks her, she sways as if gently nudged by the waves of its demise.

But it is only a finger prodding her. A long, thin finger. Immaculately clean save for the permanent blush of dirt beneath the nail. The finger, and its long-thin hand withdrawals. Its pair holds a measuring tape. With a switch, a clockwork winch spools the marked tape, and the hand deposits the device into a pocket stitched with the shape of a spore-crowned totenkopf and tongue-spade. The emblem of Skein's Cemetarians .

"A pity," the man says.

"You would have made a fine corpse-bride to my casket-grooms."

He offers the rousing Alisandre his spidery hand.

"The marriage can wait –death is nothing if not patient," he adds.

If permitted, he helps Alisandre rise, then stands back into view, bowing with curt deference. He wears a frock-coat of coarse grey fabric, similarly hued hose, and a mismatched, but precisely lined battalion of buttons. A ridiculously tall top-hat adorns his head, his face concealed by a long black veil. In short, he resembles a crematorium's flue. 

"Patient, yes-" he adds, with a shift of his veil as if smiling, "-but unfailingly punctual."

He bows.  Stiffly.

"Till the appointed hour," he says, then marches out of the crypt, slinging his shovel across his shoulder like a soldier's rifle. He stops at the threshold, taps a bundle, and calls back, "Mail's arrived." He then departs, striking up an old child's ditty with the off-key tone of a haute-contre.

"Rosies for me ma,
Who sleeps in a box,
Tra-la-la!

"Posies for me pa,
Who caught the whore's pox.
Fa-la-la!"

"But now they rest,
So let worms do,
What worms do best!
Oh-la-la..."

Eventually, the echoes of his song decompose, leaving naught but the sigh of Ailsandre's breath –and the incessant susurrus of her mother's corpse.

The sepulcher of Belphia Mei-Vourne is cold, glistening with nascent grave-dew. Its marble balusters are wreathed in desiccated blossoms of nightshade and black-wax ivy. Giant blue-bottle flies are pinned to the floral arrangements, their iridescent wings preserved by alchemical reagents. A quartet of skeletons, composed of her mother's favorite servants, grovel before Belphia's coffin. Stone-slabs balance perfectly upon their skulls, creating a pair of memorial benches –now repurposed as Alisandre's make-shift bed and dinning table. Between them, Belphia's coffin proudly rests, illuminated by foxlight fungus carefully pruned to form her family's crest: the six-winged geier rampant over an hourglass.

The coffin itself is warded brass, kept burnished and bright by Alisandre's hand. Hermetically sealed, the glass-toped coffin reveals her mother frozen in time, painted with the blush of life, hair woven into a grand pompadour, her slight frame adorned in noble regalia, resting atop of bier of midnight blue velvet –all arranged by Alisandre, a permanent, chronophagic pretense of life.

"One day he'll see through your deceit, my darling," Belphia's corpse whispers, the sound ghostly hissing through the enchanted glass. "One day I will not wake you, one day you will wake. Pupate. Blossom. It is Writhing, bring me a kiss, bring me a glass, put me to bed, sing softly lest the dead wake, 'Rosies... sleeps in a box...'"

As always, Alisandre cannot tell whether the ensorcelled voice is truly that of her mother's soul or the phantasm of her private mind. [/ic]

[ooc]This is not the first time the undertaker has so awoken you. Hopefully, it won't be the last. The first time, no doubt, quite disturbed Alisandre, given that he had seemingly 'intruded' upon the crypt without tripping any of the wards. A senior Cemetarian, however, would have access to funerary records within their jurisdiction. One price your family pays for burying their dead in the Eastern Cemetery rather than underneath their manses as most nobles do.[/ooc]

[ic]Sleep was good. Sleep was quiet. Sleep was peace. Sleep was oblivion. Sleep was death.

"No, Mother," Alisandre murmurs. "I don't want to wake up."

"I've had enough pretending."

"Just a few more minutes, please."

"I said no. I'm dead, I'm dead, I want to stay dead..."

"Let me be dead for a few moments more..."

But the undertaker's prodding finger is not so easily dismissed as a dead mother's phantasmal voice, and it is to those words he that the Cemetarian discovers one of the tomb's occupants yet lives. Alisandre's eyes peel open like a shroud being lifted from a corpse's face; without active resentment, but something that seems as if it should not be. She reaches out to accept his skeleton-thin hand.

"I am death's bride already, my nameless rouser, as are we all. I have but to repeat my wedding vows and become his wife. Some of us already stand before the altar. Others attend engagement parties. Others simply dream of the coming day. But we shall all walk down his aisle in good time."

"Perhaps I will even be a guest at your reception. He picks the date at his own whim, and cares little for prior arrangements."

"'Till the inevitable hour," she whispers back.

After the undertaker departs, Alisandre kneels before her mother's crypt, stroking the glass coffin.

"I would spend all my waking hours with you if I could, Mother. Would that this charade was unnecessary. But you are right. I have yet to blossom, and have you to think. Even in death, you are still mindful of what is best for your daughter."

Alisandre lifts her mask, and presses her scarred, blackened lips to the glass in a cold kiss.

"Wait for me, Mother. Just a bit longer, and then all the lies and falsehoods can come to an end."

Her eyes glint. "I must bring your stepsons to join us."

Finally leaving the dead to rest, she turns and pages through the bundle of letters.[/ic]

[ooc]To facilitate play (and bearing in mind how another PC found a present in his mail), I've gone ahead and rolled a dice. If such is not applicable, disregard.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Up the pillars stairs, past the myriad glyphs and devious traps, Alisandre resurfaces. Beyond the yawning gate of Belphia's crypt, the cemetery stretches outwards like a great funerary feast, its spread one of stelae, cenotaphs, and gravestones. But Alisandre's eyes focus downward, rather than out, down at the bundle tucked just inside the crypt's warding runes.  

Wrapped in today's print of the Brazen Chanticleer and sealed with Phel-Nirian's waxen heraldry, the bundle contains a handful of gifts from her half-sister Alphosine. Foremost is a tin-glazed posset pot, filled with the aromatic spiced milk-wine. Next to it is a small glyph-marked cube, imbued with a common hyperthermic-hex to heat drinks and baths.  Wrapped inside a smaller muslin pouch is an assortment of comfits: sugared anise, glazed caraway, and diced ginger. Nestled among such presents as well as a half-dozen pigment jars is a letter.

Enclosed in a papyrus envelope fastened with Alphosine's signet, the coriander-scented note reads:  

"Dearest sister,

It has simply been too long since we shared glances and spoke properly. I would have delivered these presents in person, but Seivert has become suspicious of our rendezvous –he suspects I am having an affair. Of course I am, two this season actually, but I wouldn't want to give him the impression of forgoing the pretense of propriety. That, and the man's temper has been rather dreadful of late. I believe it has to do with his hounds. Evidently, his favored beasts have lost Fortune's favor, causing poor Seivey to lose a fortune in the process. Rather pitiful affair, those mutant beasts, the stink and clamor of the coliseum. At least he doesn't drag me there anymore –not after I insulted the décolletage of his favorite courtesan in front of his cronies. Remembering their slack jaws still brings a smile to my face. As would seeing you, my dearest.

Which brings me to the belabored point of this missive. Seivert is assisting his father today, mired in some legal matters I presume, most likely to do with the Tawny Pretender. He's an alleged arsonist too now if today's paper is to be believed –which it isn't, as Cadmus is shoveling crowns down the editors' throats.  Regardless, Seivert will be away, and so the cats may play. I'd welcome you to the manse, but the servants might –no, would- talk. So I hoped we might instead enjoy a hansom ride. Sample some quince-wines, take in a play, maybe spy on one of our mutual half-brothers. I'll send Balfor's cab to pick you up –do you remember Balfor, the art critic, the one with the smirking mustache? His driver knows how to hold his tongue –though I hear that's only because he lost it to a syndicate thug for snitching. Maybe you can ask him to open his mouth, and we can take a peek, hmm? You could do worse, darling, than a man who won't babble on and on. But I digress.

If you're free, the cab will be waiting right outside the Lissome Blowfly. Remember the first time we snuck out from my mother's mausoleum and got roaring drunk with those grave-diggers? It's amazing we didn't catch flea-rash from waking into the hovel –or Hells forbid, that father didn't catch us! Ah, just listen to me prattle at the thought of seeing you. Please, please steal away, dearest. I will be waiting.

Your unparalleled sister and secret patroness,
Alphosine

PS: Prince Fugard is ill, poor thing. Lately, he can hardly hold the tea tray without spilling it on some poor footman. We may need to discuss arrangements for his internment.[/ic]

[ooc]The Lissome Blowfly is a rundown pub (and apocryphal brothel) at the edge of the Eastern Cemetery and Ebon Ward, frequented by Cemetarians and Watchmen who patrol the tomb-lands. And yes, you remember Balfor Vitarrese; he was a fan of your's, and you even recall the tongueless hansom driver Meng-Yao. Prince Fugard is her pet/pseudo-butler cinder-ape.[/ooc]  

[ic]"Ah." he responds, pausing two moments too long. He sits down in the proffered chair and sizes his host up with considering stare. "A deal, Mr. Shamgarr? I hadn't had one in mind, but I am always prepared to hear a potentially profitable proposal if indeed in the passage of our limited acquaintance a ploy for our mutual benefit has seized hold of you firmly and with both hands! In any case, allow me to progress to the purpose, and presently place your deal to one side - tabled for only a moment, I assure you!" Hadric says, words tumbling out of him. Nibs meanwhile has escaped the confines of its bag, and casually twists itself about Hadric's chair. A gentle and soothing hiss emanates from the demon, its gaze locking with that of Otto Shamgarr.

Otto favours the demon with a raised eyebrow as the sheevra dives back in. "I have come to call upon you - and allow me to complement your crew on the cleanliness of the capacious confines your craft contains - for the purpose of receiving redress on behalf of the balletic and beautiful belles Farelige. The bombastic beast, once bought, did not perform as promised. The creature is incorrigible and ill-mannered, and inclined to unbridled unruliness. Why, only a scant hour gone I - a simple passerby! - had to wrestle the rogue in order to quell quarrelsome conniption. The salon was soiled and my wardrobe wastefully wrecked in the ruckus! Simply said, sir, the sisters are sending back the surly sot to the site of sale, your ship. They - and I, awarded authority to arrange agreement - would greatly appreciate and graciously welcome the grant of a full and complete refund of the purchase price. It is my surest hope that this situation can be settled speedily and sincerely." he says.

Apparently finished speaking, Hadric folds his hands neatly in his lap and awaits Mr. Shamgarr's reply. Nibs continues to eye the man unblinkingly.[/ic]

Edited to increase alliteration.

[ic=Hadric]Hearing Hadric's alliterative, nigh-manic reply, Otto's face crinkles –at first in confusion, then consternation, and finally comprehension, or close enough to it. The pence halts mid-flip between his fingers. "I see...," he says, as if trying to convince himself.

"Yes, I see," he repeats. He watches the unbound demon and the radiant man for another moment, as if weighing some ponderous matter, or simply to make sure the sheevra is truly done speaking. Hesitation soon passes, though, as Otto nods, "Right then, business."

He springs up, half-flings his coin, then catches and palms it, and leans forward in his too-large chair.

"Well, your lordership, consider the capricorn diabolus returned. And refunded too, provided you hear out my proposition. You see, I am a... finder and provider of beasts and stranger beings. I collect not for my own fancy, or not for it alone, but for those whose interests or needs require them: menageries, circuses, aristocratic kennels, carnal curios, scientific specimens, etcetera."

"Such buyers and their varied desires necessitate a vagabond's life for me and my crew, but I'm always on the lookout for local agents. You say you single-handedly wrestled the capricorn, subdued it safely –well then, I say you have the mark of a beast-catcher! Valuable, profitable skills!"

The small man continues his pitch, alight with excitement, only once stopping to stroke his beaded mustache.

"I just so happen to be in need of a local partner here in Skein. Working with a resident would allow me to better, ah, 'massage' certain tariffs. In fact, I have a number of marks already identified right within the city, buyers lined up. Others no doubt will come down the line. You would be freelance, more or less, able to pick those targets that interested you, ignore those that don't. Hunt at your own leisure, work alone or aside others of your choosing. Usually, a decently whole corpse suffices, but top chit pays for live specimens."

"So, your lordeship-" Otto asks, once more twirling his coin, "-shall we make some money together?"
[/ic]

[ooc]If Hadric agrees, Otto gives directions to a specific warehouse in the Indigo Ward where one of his agents, Mr. Slee, will hold any beast, dead of alive, until Otto returns to finalize the deal. He promises your cut will be delivered to whatever address you so desire, once the transaction is complete. He also outlines several prospects, sharing a few heliotypes, notes, and rumored sightings. More specifically:

• An exceptional rat: The vivisectionists of the Collegia are always in need of new specimens. While they'll pay for dead, but whole, rats, they pay a good bit more for live ones. Even more lucrative, however, would be the capture of one of the apocryphal tentacle-rats, or the Rattus Pedunclus as the biologists of Tho-Lladrim have named it. Allegedly the byproduct of illegal splicing or alchemical contamination, tentacle-rats supposedly resemble piranha rats with backs bristling with tentacles. Due to the uprise in sightings by sailors and stevedores in the Indigo Ward, the vivisectionists believe the mutant rats are reproducing. Thus far, they haven't been able to get their hands on a live specimen -something about razored suckles.

• A grave-robber, of sorts: The Cemetarians who oversee the Eastern Cemetery have been complaining about a rather large fossor-wyrm, a burrowing snake-like predator known to haunt graveyards. Usually content to eat varmints and grave-moss, this particular fossor-wyrm has been allegedly snatching lone gravesite visitors, and most recently snatching a child during his aunt's burial. While the particularly aggressive fossor-wyrm is bad for funerary business, it's good for Otto's, as Cauramonde Mei-Vourne will pay good money for fossor-wyrm hide, or better, a live specimen to gift his barely-blooded bride.


• A fertile wind: A sylphid recently went missing from an alchemist's shop in the Saffron Ward. Rumors claim it is hiding inside the vapor-rich wasteland known as the Tarnish, along the border between the Ebon and Copper Ward. Even more tantalizing are the tales suggesting the sylphid is pregnant. If captured, the sylphid's owner will pay nicely. However, if rumors of pregnancy are true, the University of Moroi's Chymical Menagerie will pay even more nicely and then some.
  

If Hadric declines, Otto is a bit crestfallen but quickly recovers, begs for a few heliotypes of the sheevra and a cursory reading with one of his spectrographs, parting but leaving his offer still open.

Either way, he promises to send the salonists their refund before he disembarks.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre smiles as she bends to retrieve the newspaper and sees it marked with the sigil of her sister's house. Retreading her steps downward into Belphia's crypt, she reads the note aloud for her mother's benefit while helping herself to its accompanying sweet-tasting treats.

"A ride through the city. Wine-tasting and theatre. That sounds lovely, doesn't it, Mother?"

"Yes, to further the lie as well. And uncover the truth about your stepsons. Worry not, I shall conduct business as well as pleasure."

"Truthfully, it's not as if my affairs here demand rigorous hours. If the dead possess one thing in abundance, it is time."

"No, not in that sense. Yes, I shall pass along your regards."

"Fugard join you? I shall ask. If he was from Father, it would be appropriate to lie him to rest among the Mei-Vournes. Yes, a new face would be most welcome."

Alisandre places the leftover confections back among their containers, saving them for later, and performs several brief incantations to draw herself a bath. Mentally thanking her sister (again) for the jars of pigments and heating cube, she cleans, dresses, and otherwise prepares herself, still determined to present an image befitting her station. She bids farewell to her mother and is soon on her way for the Lissome Blowfly.[/ic]

[ic]Rage flares within her as the geists close in. Catena ducks and dodges their grasping, immolated hands, holding her breath against their contagious exhalations of ash.  She whips out her hand crossbow to shoot the nearest geist while eyeing the safe, trying to judge if it's too heavy to lift.  Her pink eyes flit from the safe over to the barred window - do the bars look rusty?  Could they be wrenched free?[/ic]

[ooc]Catena enters Bloodlust.

She uses one level of Grit (Edge/Bloodlust reduces cost to 0) on the Might roll:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

She uses one level of Grit (Edge/Bloodlust reduces cost to 0) on the Agility roll:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

I'm assuming my hand crossbow shot is an Agility roll, so I'll go ahead and roll it, again using one level of Grit (Edge/Bloodlust reduces cost to 0):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Unless I'm mistaken my pools are currently like this:

Pools: Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 7/7[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Belphia's corpse continues to babble as Alisandre departs, critiquing her daughter's blush, bemoaning the thinness of her hips, lamenting that no grandchildren will rest beside her, forecasting a rise in the price of ambergris, debating who will drink too much at the Justicars' Gala, cursing Caraumonde for not visiting. The usual affair.  

The crypt eventually swallows her mother's rant, and Alisandre makes good speed through the funerary maze she long-since mastered. In the distance, the Palace of Chimes marks the demise of Zois, the third hour. The sun rests upon the horizon, as if too tired to rise and begin its celestial labors. No other soul is in sight. Once, she passes by a half-finished paupers' grave and overhears its sack-covered occupants bickering over whether it will rain.

Near the Canopic Gardens and their organ-shaped topiaries, she exits one of the cemetery's ubiquitous black-spiked gates, then crosses Sad-Reaper's Lane with its gaudy scythe-lamps. She skirts the Ktenologists' Quarter, where executioners, gibbet-men, and poisoners snore peacefully in blood-splattered mattresses, smoke ghostgrass cigars, and study their murderous science. To the west, the Painted House looms with its variegated patinas and glinting watch-helms. Above, the sky mirrors the massive prison-barracks, a portrait of a fat sun with liquid tempera strips of orange and yellow and purple, smeared by smoky fingers of unswept chimneys and their effluvia. To the east, a heap of boarded-up buildings crawl over one another: the Meat-Moulde Slums.

Clinging to one of the Slums' ungainly corners is the Lissome Blowfly. The pub is a rough-daubed structure, featuring a casket-top door and a hexed effigy that squirms with sickening animacy. A plaque dangles from the manikin's neck, advertising the establishment's name. Below, a unibrowed bouncer dozes, his fingers resting lightly on a pair of baroque pistols.

The street is subdued in the morning hour. A pair of Cemetarians, still caked with grave-dirt shuffle into the pub. A bleary-eyed Watchmen stumbles out. A rat-catcher listens to an iron-masked busker pluck at her gut-stringed cello, blithely ignoring her empty cup. And at end of the street, a hansom waits.

The hansom is a bulbous-shaped carriage, adorned with lacquered mandrakes, paper lanterns, and mirrored glass. At the front, a bloodbay stallion paws the cobblestone with piston-grafted legs. Behind, a coachman stands. He wears a gabardine topcot, silk niqab, and lambskin gloves: each dyed the shade of faded ink. A paisley-banded bowler sits cocked on his head.

He tips the hat ever so slightly upon seeing Alisandre, then opens the door for her to enter. Upon the necromancer's approach, he –definitely Meng-Yao by his diction- whispers discretely:

"Her ladyships will be joinin' ye, come the Palace's fifth toll. Till then, I'll take ye to yer fancy."

Inside, the mirrored glass allows the cab's passengers a voyeuristic view. Yet, something within catches Alisandre's eye: an intricate clockwork puzzle box resting on the velour cushion -and beside it, another note from Alphosine:

"This time, a present for me. Given by Jeane during one of our apéritif parties, but I'll be Byleth's bride if I can open it! Typical Phan-Laru behavior: condescension swaddled in threadbare magnanimity. But perhaps a kind, brilliant sister might give it a go."[/ic]

[ooc]It's an Intellect-based task to open the box. Also, based upon the coachman's message, you have 2 hours, our time, before Alphosine joins you. Skein hours are basically 120 minutes long.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena's bolt catches the geist in its burnt-crisp forehead, throwing it backwards into the unwilling arms of its peers.[/ic]

[ooc]Few could single-handedly heft the safe. Catena is one of them. Especially when enraged. The bars might be similarly wrenched, but might take more time. Both would be Might checks.  Also, as your minor benefit vs the geist-infection, you have swallowed enough 'clean' air that you don't need to make another Might save this next round. You will need to make another Agility defense roll, though. DC 2 for you.[/ooc]

[ic]Continuing to evade the geists' crooked, reaching fingers, Catena tries to buy herself a few moments. Holstering her crossbow she ducks over towards the safe and attempts to heft it towards the geists, ideally in such a way that the doorway is partially obstructed.[/ic]

[ooc]Might as well apply Grit for 0 cost to the Agility roll to dodge:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Likewise for her Might check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Also, how weak do the floors/walls look?[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]As if sensing their prey's plan, the geists surge forward. Their scorched arms grasp and grope, but Catena beats them off, breaking off charred fingers by the dozen. Sinews straining, she hefts the soot-stained safe. But the grave-spawn are relentless, they hack and spew their cloying, choking vapors. They swarm her, attempting to grab her head, turn her face, pry open her lips to deliver unholy kisses, mouths agape and smoke-tongued.

So assaulted, she thrashes back and forth, shaking off their terrible probing hands and faces. The safe becomes both shield and battering ram. Eventually, she turns, and heaves it. But in the smoky chaos, she is disoriented. The safe slips from her fingers too soon, her aim off... and the safe hurtles through the air... but not to the window.

It smashes into the floor.

It smashes through the floor.

It smashes into the floor below.

And threw it.

And down to the floor below.

A floor littered with beaten-down polemics and the cudgel-swinging Watchmen who beat them. As the safe smashes into their midst, it falls upon one of the head guards mid-diatribe, crushing his helmeted skull into a bloody pulp -splattering his lieutenants and captives nearby. As the safe hits the flagstone floor, it cracks open, vomiting a torrent of fire-virgin crowns, drachmae, and obeloi.

In the wake of the safe's murder and spectacle of wealth, the room explodes like a kicked hornet's nest. Bedlam reborn.

Two flights above, Catena can only look down in shock. Even the geists take pause, torn between the single prey so close and the entire herd of souls so suddenly accessible.[/ic]

[ooc]You just had to ask... and roll the 1.[/ooc] 

[ic]Catena hisses a Chattelchatter curse at the unintentional devastation below. While the geists are momentarily distracted she leaps downwards through the hole, hoping to fling herself so that she lands on the floor directly below her, rather than in the cellar.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility roll with one level of Grit applied (no cost due to Edge and Bloodlust):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Nimbly she dives through the cloud of grave-spawn and down into the ragged tear. Tucking into a knot of muscles, she then springs, and tumbles down onto the floor below, bits of rotted floorboards crumbling in her wake.

The geists follow, but as they drift down the hole, they lose track of their quarry, confused by the warmth and breath of so many living bodies. Like moths to the flame, they rush downward, down into the crazed hive of embattled radicals and guards. Their first victims never even see their doom approach. Shouts follow. Gunshots. A diabolic invocation. The deafening fire of a rotary gun. The roar of a Hell-plucked fiend. Screams of terror and death.

A floor above, the sounds are barely muted. In several places, the floor sags ominously. Bricked-up staircases close off the level -but ahead, Catena sees light, filtering from rather flimsy boards, half-heartedly propped-up against a row of windows.  Indeed, even with the distracting chaos below and the dim light beyond, the albino can tell that the signs of the old conflagration are less noticeable here. There has been some attempt to clean-up the place -poorly perhaps, but obvious. In certain corners, rubbish and fresh refuse litter the floor.

Any further inspection, however, is interrupted when a hail of bullets pierce the floor, sending a shower of splinters and shrapnel in Catena's direction. Potentially of equal threat is the increased groaning beneath her feet, as the sagging, tortured floor begs for dissolution.[/ic]

[ooc]Ok, make an Agility defense roll against the gunfire coming from below and its resultant shrapnel. DC 1 for you. If she tries to cross the floor, make a balance check: DC 2 for you.[/ooc]   

[ic]
Xavier deems it best to not go around asking any questions, to avoid raising suspicions. He'll have to find the incendiary agent on his own. Figuring that the Faminites would want to minimize exposure to sunlight, they probably have hidden the materials in the darkest parts of the Harrow-House. That's where he'll begin his search.
[/ic]

[ooc]Roll me an Intellect check, Ghostman, as Xavier searches for the Faminites' stash. If your roll meets or exceeds the listed DCs, he discovers the following while searching Harrow-House.

DC 1:
[spoiler]Double the fun. On average, local ghul-whores have more teeth than quick ones. Don't ask how Xavier uncovers such evidence.[/spoiler]

DC 3:
[spoiler]Pressing matters. Harrow-House is littered with old clippings of the Voracious Quill, a contraband periodical that serves as a thinly guised front for Faminite pamphlet and political tract dissemination. While most assume the litter is due to many of its readers dwelling inside the House, Xavier learns the deeper truth: the Quill's secret printing-press moves around in the bowels of the ruin. If he can find the printing-press, he's sure to find some high-ranking Faminite, or at least someone connected enough to know where the stash is hidden. They say it's located deep enough that one can't hear the clanging of keys and gears from the surface.[/spoiler]

DC 4:
[spoiler]Hold the press! Xavier finds the stash, or at least he's pretty sure he does, when he spies a cluster of Faminites who have claimed a private chapel inside the House as their turf. Problem is, they're on edge and none-too friendly to strangers -especially to those who show any interest in the chapel's undercroft, which is guarded by no less than five thugs and a Revenant-forged howitzer! Yet, Xavier does manage to overhear that the 'Soldiers of Skin' are awaiting a new boss who's away meeting other revolutionaries in the Rot-Briquets but due to return any minute. Supposedly they'll recognize the boss by his carrying 'tomorrow's' print of the Quill tucked into his shirt.[/spoiler]

DC 5:
[spoiler]A gamble of gears. Xavier finds the vagabond printing-press apparatus -or most of it- stowed away in what must have been the intended catacombs of the House. Evidently the Faminites prefer hiding the Quill to guarding it, figuring that most folks wouldn't know what to make of the clockwork heap, much less how to assemble and operate it. Then again, Xavier isn't like most folk. [/spoiler]

DC 6:
[spoiler]A helping hand. Xavier stumbles across a former syndicate member, Maryse-Liang. After chatting up and sharing a bottle, Maryse reveals she is not only one of the Quill's printers, but she's actually part of the printing press (more precisely, her gear-borg left arm is). She'll willing to help Xavier, but only if he promises to get her back into the Brass Skulls. Maryse can confirm that the Faminites are stashing the explosives in the undercroft and knows where the press-heap is. [/spoiler]
[/ooc]

[ic]Landing hard on the floorboards, Catena springs aside from the spray of bullets from below. She makes for the windows, trying to avoid the sagging depressions in the floor.[/ic]

[ooc]Two Agility checks, the first to avoid the bullets, the second to reach the window safely:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Swift and sure-footed, Catena crosses the treacherous, shrapnel-ridden expanse. Reaching the wall, she spots a group of previously-hidden urchins huddling under loose planks. Below, the fray continues to rage. Beyond, cracks in the boards reveal the cobblestone breadth of Baggerskin Street. The last of its few sentries rush into the embattled building, leaving naught but rag-clad gawkers to guard their posts.[/ic]

[ooc]DC 2 (for you) to climb down, if you so choose.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena briefly eyes the urchins dispassionately; any compassionate instinct has been so thoroughly expunged from her that she perceives them only as potential threats, noting whether any have weapons upon them.  Having killed many men and women much larger than she is, Catena knows better than to underestimate the damage a child can do if armed and fearful.  Gesturing to make it clear that she means no harm she kicks the boards away and tucks herself through the window.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility check to reach Baggerskin Street safely:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]A shiv, a broken wrench. Shaking hands. The orphans pose little threat to Catena and offer no resistance whatsoever. Catena is thus left free to scramble out the window and down the brick wall like a four-limbed spider. A short jump later, and she's free: the nearby gawkers too distracted, afraid, or unconcerned at the albino's passing.

A few minutes later and the echo of Watch whistles, gunshots, and screams no longer rings in her ears. The stench of smoke, however, lingers long after.[/ic]

[ooc]Ball's in your court again. You may attempt another Intellect check to gather info on Vleng-Luc, with each roll taking another hour.. and potentially attracting additional attention. See the previous roll results. Of course, you are free to pursue specific methods or actions of your own choosing.[/ooc]  

[ic]Catena rests in a narrow alleyway for a moment, gathering her thoughts and letting her pulse slow.  If all else fails she will seek out the Orchid-Eaters, or one of their establishments.[/ic]

[ooc]Let's try another Intellect check; I'll apply a level of Grit, using 2 points from my Intellect pool:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 5/13, Agility 7/12, Intellect 5/7[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]A rare moment of calm allows Catena's mind to work. One strand of thought connects to another, till a taut web forms, a far more promising strategy than her prior attempts to locate Xalmas.  

To find Xalmas, she must find Pieng-Luc. To find the fence, perhaps she should seek another like him. Yes, Yorian might do... Ngo-Shenn introduced her to the freelancer. He helped her pawn off some salvaged devices she lifted from the Oddsauger, and she later saved his legs from syndicate collectors. Twice. Yes, Yorian owes her a favor... but there might be a better way. Yes, Red Mei. So foolish not to think of her sooner. She holds a whole deck of low-lifes and two-chit informers under her thumb, Yorian's one of them... and didn't Guin say the Watch questioned Vleng-Luc anyways? Yes, Red Mei is the ticket. Of course, she might not be so happy to see Catena. Broken noses take a while to heal...

Looking up, Catena tries to estimate the hour, then guess where she might find the crooked guard. Late Sinq or early Xi, she reckons as a low-flying dirigible temporarily blots out the zenith-crossed sun. As she considers the time and Mei's probable locations, hunger scratches at her gut. To the former slave, it's an all-too familiar, if easily ignored sensation. Her thirst, on the other hand, is not so patient. So distracted, Catena gives up trying to guess Red Mei's location and heads to her tenement in Mongrelle Run, figuring her landlord might know.

One of Skein's few notable concentrations of alien residents, Mongrelle Run squats at the edge of the Ebon Ward, half-spilling into the Indigo docklands. Disreputable even by Ebon Ward standards, the Run is an eclectic ghetto, home to both immigrant humans and the even more discriminated nonhumans. Mantids mingle with Erebhite expatriates, cestoids slurp from the privy-sluices of Macellarian transplants, Somnambulon refugees, and Moroi fugitives. Even a pack of half-feral, flea-bitten zerda allegedly prowls the Run's tortuous, ramshackle architecture. Strange spices, foreign tongues, and bizarre pheromones fill the air, while anti-miscegenation graffiti, xeno-registry bulletins, and flypost advertisements war over the plaster-peeling walls and cracked lamp-posts.      

Red Mei's penthouse overlooks the squalid mélange. Twelve stories below, her landlord –an unctuous leechkin known as Two-Smiles- dwells in a perpetually flooded basement. Rumored to accept 'donations' of blood' in lie of rent payments, Two-Smiles prefers indolently wading in its private cesspool to fixing its crackled-plumbing, mite-infested tenements.

No guards stop Catena's ingress, nor check her passage down into the muck-rimmed quarters.  No lights mar the darkness. No breeze mitigates the stench of offal, mold, and exsanguinated rats. Droplets of water echo strangely against bent pipes and rotted ceilings.

As Catena's feet brush the water's scum-slick edge, something stirs in the pitch-black waters. A piscine murmur, then the faintest echo of something breaking the pool's surface.

"G-greetingss-s, Catena," Two-Smiles hisses from its palm-mouths, "What'ss can I do'ss fer youss-s."[/ic]

[ic]"The Viridian Ward please, Meng-Yao," Alisandre answers upon climbing into the carriage. As the driver's whip cracks and sends the horse-drawn vehicle rattling off, she methodically turns Alphosine's box over in her gloved hands. Puzzles were but one of many ways to idle away long hours during the crypt-vigils Caraumonde so enjoyed forcing on his children, and she had solved her share. Several minutes pass in quiet concentration before the carriage rounds a bend and her inflexible, charred fingers slip, sending the clockwork device tumbling to the floor. Alisandre quietly fumes as she snatches it back up and begins to redo her earlier work.

"What'sss the trouble, misstresss? Fingerss feelin'ss a bit... ssssssstifss?"

The mummified corpse of her familiar Zorjub, a horned imp with faded red skin and tattered, shroud-like wings, sits beside her on the carriage seat. Numerous stitchings crisscross the familiar's neck, keeping the pitiful thing's head from falling off. Mostly. She never stopped drooping. A bloated and forked tongue lolls uselessly from her mouth, still and silent to all save her mistress. Zorjub claimed to miss the city beyond the Eastern Cemetery, so Alisandre had brought her along. The diminutive corpse was, if nothing else, portable.

"You are aware, Zorjub," the necromancer replies, not looking up from her task. "And you will cease these petty attempts to rile me. I could as soon have left you back at the crypt."

"Oh, a thousssand pardonssss, missstressss, your humble sssssservant begsssss your forgivenessssss. We had jusssst thought after..."

"Dying at my father's hands, you are entitled to act as you please towards me? I am sympathetic to you finding long hours in the crypt dull, but you still have much reason to be thankful. Your death was quick."

"Ssss-sss-ssss, thankful? Yousss sstil the one with yousss head. Youssss sssstill breathin, I'ssss jusssst dead. You thinksss-"

"Be silent," Alisandre mutters irritatedly, eyes still on the puzzle box. "You are distracting me, and while I owe you little, I owe my sister Alphosine much. If you cannot hold your tongue I can always send you back to the crypt. It's been some time since your last walk, has it not? Perhaps your legs will feel stiff."

"Noo-noo-nooossss, missstresss, pleasssse, notss the half-death, pleassse notss, we jussstss wantss to ressssstss..."

"Then rest in silence. You are far too talkative for such a tired corpse."

"Sssss..."

Alisandre returns her attention to the clockwork puzzle box, not leaving the carriage until it is solved or the task proves utterly futile (she distractedly and somewhat awkwardly tells Meng-Yao to "do something you enjoy" should she take sufficiently long). Afterwards, she moves throughout the Viridian Ward on various errands; picking up necromantic components for her spells, assorted mortician's supplies for their subjects, extra clay to keep her hands busy, and new reading material (with an eye towards tragedies and murders) to keep her mind likewise. She also keeps an ear out (and eye, by also picking up a newssheet) for any news concerning her father Cauramonde and three half-brothers. Alphosine's missives were usually most informative, but there was value in hearing from other sources.[/ic]

[ooc]Spending 2 grit (reduced to 1 by my Intellect Edge) to reduce the puzzle's difficulty by 2 steps.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

Might 8/8, Agility 11/11, Intellect 15/17.

Edit: Oh, nat 1 on the first roll. Fun times sure to abound.[/ooc]

[ooc]
Intellect check, spending 2 Grit:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 10/10 (0), Agility 14/14 (1), Intellect 10/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic]
Xavier ventures deeper into the bowels of the Harrow-House, lumbering forth with the miserly gait of a guttersnipe in an effort to blend in with the sickly crowd. While scanning his surroundings for any signs of possible hidden deposits, his attention is caught by a familiar looking figure. After but a moment's hesitation he approaches the gearborg woman, glancing about to make sure they'll be out of earshot of any would-be eavesdroppers.

"Maryse-Liang." He simply calls her by her name, trusting that she'll recognize him by face and by voice, though it has been quite some time since they last met. She does so, acknowledging him with an equally gruff greeting in return. Xavier slumps down to chat and drink with the former syndicate member, learning of her present occupation as a printer (and a part of the printing press) for the Quill... and her desire to get back into the Brass Skulls. After hearing of his search for the explosives, Maryse reveals that she's aware of the location of the stash and would impart this information - in exchange for a favour.

"And I suppose in return you'll want me to help you back into the ranks of the syndicate?" Xavier muses, his assumption affirmed by a nonchalant nod from the woman. Seeing as it's as good of a lead as he could possibly hope for, and his time being in short supply, the assassin finds no reason to decline. "Fair enough. I'll talk to the bossmen and vouch for your return. If fortune favours and I can nail this hit, I should be in good standing to speak for you. Now show me where they're keeping the lady's lace."
[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]Engrossed in Jeane's puzzle-box, Alisandre barely registers her trip across the city. Nonetheless, a blurred metamorphosis occurs in her peripheral vision as the hansom races across the wards and crosses the ship-clotted Radula: a transformation from destitution into decadence. Within Skein's philosopher's quarter, Spires resembling crustacean trees rise from manicured gardens of exotic, oft otherworldly, flora; genteel libraries and pneumatic-pillared museums cater to the curious and coin-ladden; and the Collegia distill puissance and pride from their aristocratic pupils. Flitting between such well-heeled establishments, Meng-Yao easily obtains Alisandre's list of goods -though the cost of such purchases is far from cheap.  

Inside the cab, however, difficulties ensue. The puzzle-box is devilishly complex, originally containing a series of nine locks, each more difficult than the last. Matters are made more difficult when Alisandre discovers that Alphosine's failed attempts have caused the locks -which open with a combination of mechanical maneuvering and magic- to multiply. Alisandre makes good progress on undoing her half-sister's blunders, but a sudden jolt of the cab causes her maimed fingers to slip, triggering another wave of multiplicatively-spawning mechanisms. In its current state, the seemingly sisyphean box could take hours, perhaps days of concentrated, careful labor -something that Zorjub's corpse points out with great relish.

As the fifth hour approaches, Alisandre's fingers and mind ache with fatigue and frustration. Zorjub's snickering does not help.

Perhaps equally aggravating, Alisandre barely has time to peruse her purchases before Alphosine arrives, and in that short time, she finds that several of the supplies are incorrect. When confronted, Meng-Yao pleads innocence, citing how he purchased exactly what was requested, and it soon becomes apparent that the blame is Alisandre's: distracted by the puzzle-box, she misspoke her instructions.

Refunds are not likely to be forthcoming. Nor is the cessation of Zorjub's snickering.[/ic]

[ooc]50 crowns later, she has most of the requested items... and some others of little use or value.[/ooc]  

[ic=Xavier]True to her word, Maryse-Liang directs Xavier to a moldering private chapel that has been converted into a make-shift fortress by a group of militant Faminites. About a dozen thugs patrol the area, sharpening nasty-looking cleavers and chewing on strange-smelling jerky.

"Call themselves the Soldiers of Skin. Bunched of cracked fanatics with a death-wish, I say," the wrinkled gear-borg whispers from a safe distance. Pointing to a locked hatch guarded by five particularly sharp-eyed ghilan, she adds, "Stash's in there. I saw 'em load it. I've not been below, but it's some kind of undercroft, I've heard. No other way in." Beyond their blades and blunderbuss pistols, the ghilan control a massive, rust-eaten howitzer of Somnambulon manufacture. Noting the artillery, Maryse-Liang quietly exclaims, "Sixty hells, what are they thinkin! That wasn't there yesterday. Must of smuggled it in last night."

While the elderly gearborg quietly debates how they obtained the contraband, Xavier overhears a piece of extremely helpful information: the "Soldiers" are waiting for their boss to arrive. Currently in the Rot-Briquets meeting other revolutionaries, the new boss is due any moment. Evidently, none of the thugs have met the boss, but will identify him by his carrying a copy of tomorrow's Quill tucked into his shirt.  

Upon hearing this, Maryse-Liang confirms that the print-handlers are indeed scheduled to meet around supper-time to print tomorrow's issue. She offers to take the assassin to where the printing press is currently hidden in the House's catacombs. She explains that the printing apparatus is currently disassembled, but could easily be put back together and run with both of them working together. "Not enough ink to do a full runnin', but I bet we can squeeze out a single copy."

"Wait!" she exclaims to herself, rubbing her greased elbow excitedly, "I got it, yes, that all fits. Remmy, the chief printer, said somethin' about a guest coming today with an 'explosive' tip that'll 'change tomorrow'. I bet that's what the paper means -it doesn't just identify the leader, it gives 'em instructions, tellin' where to use the lace."

"This is deep-gleet we're walkin' into, Xav," she says with a meaningful look, "You want my help, I'm good. But if you're wantin' me to print this paper, I'm gonna need your assurances that the Skulls will take me back -I can't be twistin' in the wind, with my knickers down and bottom bare when the Quill, much less the Soldiers, find out I've helped you and screwed 'em over. I'm goin' to need a place to lay low -somewhere away from the House and all its stinkin' crackpots."[/ic]

[ooc]Beyond addressing Maryse-Liang's concerns, you'll also need to make an Intellect check (DC 2 with Maryse-Liang, DC 5 without) to help with the printing press and pick a false name and site for the 'issue'. Of course, you could also forgo the paper and try to obtain the cache another way -or back out and try to kill the dollmaker using other means.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre mutely looks over the unwanted, useless goods. Life was futility. One could rebel against this truth, go on in defiance for years, but death came for everyone. In the end, all would be dust. In the end, all was for naught.

"Put them in the back," she orders the coachman, voice empty. Far more vexing, in any case, was her inability to to complete Jeane's puzzle. She whiles away the rest of her time on the clockwork device, just as fruitlessly, until her half-sister arrives.

"Alphosine," she says, rising to greet her sibling. "It has been far too long. I would reply to your missives by post, but... well, my mail services are what they are. Nevertheless, they do give us these rendezvous to look forward to; letters are simply not the same."

"Thank you for your gifts. They would be welcome under any circumstances. Under such ones as I now face, they are more appreciated than you can imagine."

Alisandre turns over the clockwork contraption in her hands. "It is clear that Jeane does not wish to make solving his present easy. The harder one attempts to open the puzzle's locks, the more it creates. Nevertheless, I believe I can do so, given several further hours... or days. Father's vigils have taught us patience if nothing else, and I would repay your kindness."

"Tell me, how fare your affairs? Better than marriage, I should hope. Your husband always was foolish to trust his money to chance. Fortune does not favor the bold, only those bold enough to spurn her favor."

"And how is father dearest? Is he still married to... truthfully, I ceased bothering to remember our stepmothers' names long ago, we have gone through so many. At least we no longer need attend their funerals."[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]"Don't scowl, dearest; it gives you the most unflattering wrinkles."

Stepping into the cab with Meng-Yao's assistance, the middle-aged magistra wears a silken gown, dyed a see-through maroon, with a plunging neckline embroidered with geist-faced roses. An elaborate wig rests proudly on her head, its powdered curls embellished with black-striped jay feathers and an hourglass brooch crusted with diamond 'sands'. Pearl-clasped mousquetaire gloves adorn her arms, while a glass-goggled half-mask graces her face –a face permanently frozen into a smile, as Alphosine's skin has been injected with necrotic reagents to retain the faux-luster of youth.

On her lap, her familiar, Zeernebub, rests. Resembling a long-haired cat with the eyes and mouth of a fly, Zeernebub preens with its sponge-like proboscis, eyeing Alisandre and the mummified Zorjub –which begins to shout churlish insults- with multi-faceted, iridescent eyes. Like all magisters and their familiars, a silver chain binds the pair, connecting Zeernebub's hexed collar and Alphosine's gem-studded bracelet.

"Now, dearest, let's see a smile so I know you've missed me so. Or shall we pout a bit, you and I, till we contrive some diversions to sufficiently entertain us?"

"Oh, I know, why don't I tell you all about our last step-mother's funeral! That should certainly lift your spirits, especially when you hear about how Xedric snored through the eulogy! Not that I blame him -though that won't stop me from slandering him. You see, dearest, it all began when Symas started waxing eloquent about the bodily mysteries of exotransubstantiation..."[/ic]

[ooc]Alphosine is more than happy to let you fiddle with the confounding box for however long you wish. And speaking of wishes, you're free to direct or propose any sort of trip now. Along the way, Alphosine answers your questions, including recounting how Belphia's 'replacement', an elderly heiress named Delepitore died within a fortnight of their marriage -surprisingly of old age -a first for Caraumonde! She also tells how he just recently remarried: a frightened new bride named Proserpine of House Lucor-Rrem.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena is not oblivious to the multifarious stenches oozing around her, but they hold for her no horror.  She tastes each scent as an animal would, considering its particular chife; each odour tells a story.  There were times, in the darkness, when even with eyes grown large and sensitive she and her fellow slaves were plunged into lightlessness complete as the utter blackness at the bottom of the ocean; during such periods she learned to rely on other senses, to see with her ears and hands and nose.  In the malodourous dark of the basement such acclimation serves her well.  She inhales deep, with neither savour nor revulsion.

"Two-Smiles.  I require the location of the one known as Red Mei.  What price do you ask for this information?"[/ic]

[ic=Catena]"Juss-st the usual," the leechkin hisses back, oily, "A kiss-ss and a s-sssip."[/ic]

[ic]Though smiles do not come easily to Alisandre, catching up and mocking her half-brothers over a shared meal proves able to lift her spirits. Xedric actually fell asleep? The man would be nowhere if it weren't for Symis; at least when she was it wasn't thanks to another's help. And Symis, didn't he know when to shut up? Father should have sent him back to the Chelicerae Mountains along with his precious nuns. Did he still complain about those? The natural death of Caraumonde's wife proves a true surprise to Alisandre, though she expresses only disdain for his recently-wed bride. Shouldn't they know better by now? Father's wives would take up the entire Eastern Cemetery at the rate he went through them.

After finishing their meal and attending a play, Alisandre suggests syping on Xedric together once he leaves Parliament. Symis is more clever and Patrois' involvement in the conspiracy is still uncertain (to say nothing of the man also being more clever). Besides, Xedric will be looking to relax and unwind after a tedious legislative session, so perhaps he will be less careful with his tongue than he ought. Knowing that her own outcast status will make her unwelcome in any establishment that serves magisters, Alisandre disguises herself as a member of the serving staff with a uniform thoughtfully furnished by Alphosine. Besides, no one notices the help. Even guarded tongues can become loose when they believe no one of consequence will hear their words.[/ic]

[ooc]Alphosine, as we discussed, will also be there to serve as a distraction/red herring. Spending 2 grit (Edge reduces to 1) to negate the penalty to deception from my Morbid flaw. Normal difficulty.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Might 8/8, Agility 11/11, Intellect 13/17.

Also, I'd like to try drugging Xedric with something to loosen his inhibitions. With the primary aim of making him looser-lipped, but if it makes him do something inappropriate among noble company (thus damaging his image as heir and my replacement), that's good too. Assuming Alphosine's ok paying for that as well (and Xedric wants anything to drink), I've rolled a dice, which I'll also spend 2 grit on. Not sure what pool you'd want me to deduct it from.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]Roll to convince Alphosine, per our AIM discussion. Spending another 2 grit to negate my Morbid penalty. [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Still aglow with the risqué pageantry of the Devil's Second Nuptial, Alphosine is all-too happy to follow her half-sister's lead.  Meng-Yao expertly takes the ladies first to the Saffron Ward, where a quarter-hour of shopping -and a hefty exchange of crowns- gives the disowned magistra the guise of a Phel-Nirian handmaid, clad in maroon and white livery. Alphosine chuckles at the transformation. Zeernebub, however, ignores the spectacle and busies herself by regurgitating her poached salmon from lunch. Zorjub's corpse is quite –silenced by Alisandre's switching of masks.

So disguised, Alisandre tracks down Xedric using Alphosine's contacts. Fortunately for their schemes, they find him in a less-than exclusive pleasure-club in the Indigo Ward called the Sateen Comte. Alphosine initially balks at Alisande's idea to drug their half-brother, but her affronted mien soon fades. By the time they purchase the potent, yet subtle, vintage of madwine, she is positively bursting to execute their plot.

He sees them of course –he even eyes the guised Alisandre and makes a snide comment to Alphosine about her changing servants as often as their father changes brides. But he never truly looks at Alisandre, none of the club's patrons do. She is no more watched than Alphosine's shoes. Alphosine, of course, banters back, noting how Xedric's waist is always changing too –but sadly only in one direction. Her remark draws cigar-choked guffaws from Xedric's drinking companions: a fellow parliamentarian and a reedy-faced bureaucrat. To Xedric's great chagrin and half-spoken shout, the goateed nobleman invites the magistra to join them for a hand of Black Faro. She pretends to demurely reject the invitation, but eventually saddles over to their mercerized booth and its gaslamp chandelier. To Alisandre's secret delight, Xedric gives a feeble, completely ignored growl of protest as Alphosine sits down, separating her half-brother from his companions.

Beyond flustering the already peevish man, the positioning is perfect for Alisandre's scheme. Standing beside the booth, she is just an elbow away from Xedric's servant: a dim-eyed doormat that was old before Alisandre was weaned.  As the game progresses, it's all-too easy for Alisandre to pour, mix, and substitute the drinks, all the while pretending to offer the old valet a hand. Xedric remains oblivious –especially as he begins to lose ever-greater sums of money to his bearded peer... and any chance of sealing a back-room deal on Sarantos' quarry-tariffs are ruined by the combination of Alphosine's well-timed barbs and the increasing toll of potent madwine.

Already flustered, the liquor-addled man begins to shout at illusory barkeeps, laugh at hallucinatory jokes, and sweat profusely as terrifying images dance and flit across his vision. He tries to play off his faux pas, but the parliamentarian ribs him for cracking under the pressure, for being a sore loser.

Xedric snaps. He flips over the table, scattering the glasses, cards, and tokens. He hefts his prodigious bulk and throws a meaty fist at the man, accusing him of cheating, or poisoning him. Xedric's intoxicated aim is tragically off. The parliamentarian ducks, and the punch smashes into the bureaucrat's temple. The thin man crumples, knocked out cold by the frothing magister.

Patronage and staff alike stop and stare with undisguised shock.

Horror blanches Xedric's face.

The Comte's maitre d' –whose expression is nearly aghast as Xedric's- rushes forward, stammering some nonsensical half-question, part-apology. Xedric just shakes his sweat-drenched head. He shoves the man aside, then pushes past the flabbergasted doormen, shouting for his quite confused lackey to follow. The near-blind valet gives a stiff bow to Alisandre before leaving, thanking her for her assistance, and then stumbles after his enraged master.  

As the rest of club still reels at the scandalous scene, Alphosine raises a glass to her 'servant' and curtly motions with her eyes. The gesture seems to ask whether she wants to follow Xedric or stay and chat up his erstwhile companions.[/ic]

[ic]Catena fetches a few coins and tosses them into the black pool.

"This should be more than sufficient to slake your appetites.  Now speak."[/ic]

[ooc]She'll offer 4 crowns.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Two-Smiles praises Catena for her exceptional generosity, then relays Red Mei's usual routes and on-duty whereabouts. "At thiss-s hour, s-she'ss likely at the Mooncalf, where Chigger Lane cuts-ss-s the Tangle."

Aided by said directions, Catena is able to hire another rickshaw -this one pulled by a dark-skinned bastard of Lophian descent- and makes her way to the Mooncalf Tangle. The paint-splotched rickshaw swims through the Ebon Ward's flimsy traffic, subdued by yesterday's excess. Along the way, a few rash-scarred costermongers lazily hawk 'goods': gleet-stained sacks of dubious content, tumorous produce speckled by mites, and rubbish-picked leftovers from magistras' tables.

Light retreats as she reaches the Tangle. Here, the Northern Rail rises above the slums like a shadow-shatting wave, covering entire buildings under the iron-wrought line and supporting elyctromechanical platforms. Oscillations in the voltaic batteries cause intermittent discharges of sallow sparks and evanescent phlogiston. Underneath, the buildings bear strange injuries: spiraling burns, rooftops like melted glass, upper stories warped by some strange thaumaturgic radiation. Disturbed by the rail's thoughtless intrusion, the now-subterreanean streets curve in crooked patterns.

Chigger Lane is no exception. Initially a straight line running from the Sepia Ward, the throughway abruptly snakes around rust-smeared girders and seeping cables. Under the railway, paper-lanterns sag like radiant boils, dangling from a cat's cradle of laundry lines and grounding wires, providing dim illumination for those few shops that haven't abandoned the Tangle. A cluster of red lanterns announce a half-pence brothel. From its broken-glassed windows, liver-marked gigolos and hirsute strumpets battle for passers-by's affection, promising ever more obscene acts in a tired, oft-rehearsed bidding war. Squatting across the iniquitous den and several fungus-crawled flophouses, a derelict factory now serves as a well-intentioned, but woefully underfunded hospital. Down the line, where the moans of lust and ebbing life become a slurred murmur, a Collegia-dropout-turn-junkie commands his pinafore-dressed familiar, a frog-faced monkey-thing, to perform petty tricks for some fadingly amused Watchmen.

One of the Watchmen, upon seeing the albino warrior ride up, nods to an ugly blockhouse marked with the tarnished seal of the city's gendarme.

"Lieutenant's inside," he says with Shambles-accented Hellspeak. He beckons for Catena to follow, then throws down a bent crown to the bactarian demon.[/ic]

[ooc]Note that the rickshaw ride provides you with time for another recovery roll if you wish to take it.[/ooc]

[ic]The assembled nobles see only a servant waiting upon their needs. In another lifetime, Alisandre might have been embarassed, indignant, to find herself playing such a role. Now, she hardly pays mind. With every faux pas, with every gaff, with every embarassment her half-brother subjects himself to, Alisandre's eyes dance with cold, harsh laughter.

When Xedric finally overturns the table and assaults the hapless bureaucrat, Alisandre can barely contain her joy. Such an appalling loss of control in one who expects to rule. This will be gossiped about long after the madwine has worn off. She can already hear the scorn-filled voices laughing, "Remember that one time Xedric..."

Yes, my brother. Know what it is to be disgraced. Abhorred. Humiliated. This is but a first taste of things to come.

As Caraumonde's heir flees the establishment in horror, Alisandre meets her half-sister's gaze and covertly signals for them to split. They can reunite later to share their gossip. Making sure to stay a safe distance away, she follows Xedric out into the streets, already mentally rehearsing the lie should she be caught.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility (stealth) check to avoid being spotted.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Intellect (deception) check for the fib we discussed, in case I flub the stealth check. Spending 2 grit to negate my flaw's penalty.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alphosine nods understandingly. "Be careful," she breathes, then turns back to the goateed parliamentarian who struggles to rouse the still-unconscious bureaucrat. Nearby, the Comte's staff flutter ineffectually, unsure how to untangle themselves from the scandalous incident without further insult.

Outside, the still-disguised Alisandre follows Xedric's valet. She spots her half-brother as he steps into a parked cabriolet. Adorned with House Mei-Vourne's insignia, the two-seated pleasure carriage has a massive folding hood reminiscent of bent batwings and a funeral-wreathed draft animal with aspects both lupine and equine. Xedric violently grabs the reins from a startled groom –whom he promptly and unceremoniously kicks out. As the liveried man stumbles to the rear platform, the elderly valet barely steps into the cab before Xedric viciously lashes the harnessed beast, causing it to half-leap, half-gallop down the manicured boulevard. The groom, left behind in a cloud of dust, gapes in stunned silence.

Alisandre herself has little time to react before Xedric disappears. Dashing to Balfor's hansom, she orders Meng-Yao to follow her sibling's cabriolet. The chase is difficult, but Balfor's driver is skilled. They follow Xedric, pursuing as unobtrusively as possible, but the intoxicated magister drives his carriage like a possessed swine. Twice he nearly crashes into a gaslamp. Fortunately, the streets are relatively uncrowded, and no pedestrian is crushed along the drunkard's warpath from the Indigo to Viridian Ward.

Abruptly, the bone-rattling ride halts. Xedric leaps from the carriage, barking at his valet to remain behind and tend the reins. He then dashes into an alley wedged between a museum of bathysmal antiquities and a shop selling epistolary curios.

Time passes, and curiosity beckons Alisandre to rise from her poor vantage. She slinks down the alley. Dismally, she spots a dozen or so backdoors, but no sign of her half-brother. Having come so far, she continues down the dead-end corridor, creeping past dumpsters and empty crates. Peeking through dark-paned windows, she is surprised when she is suddenly grabbed from behind and slammed against the brick wall.  

It is Xedric. Instinctively, she tries to break free, but the man's grip is like iron.

"What'dwe have 'ere!" the stout man hisses in her ear, his breath reeking of madwine. "A spy for my corpse-faced siser, hmmm?"

He waits for her to answer, then spits into her mouth. Fighting back her rising gorge, she stammers her rehearsed lie. He half-listens, then pushes her into the bricks again, bashing her head painfully.

Then, his grimace slackens –although his grip remains frighteningly tight. He smiles, a wild, yellow-lipped grin. For a terrifying moment, she fears he might violate her. She can almost see the thought slip across his eyes. But the moment passes.

"Well, you jay-garbed sheathe," he hisses, leaning in disgustingly close, spittle flecking in her face, "Your mine, now. We're gonna go to a lil' soiree together, jus' you and me. Won't that be nice. Then, when I've had my fill, you'll scamper on back to Sine's nest and tell her all the sordid details, all nice and pretty and unharmed-like."

"Resist me," he says as his fat-face darkens into a blood-sapping stare, "-n I'll dash your brains out and send them to Alphosine in a lil' cake-box."

No deceit mars the man's promise or threat.

Then, whether by blood or some specious epiphany, Alisandre momentarily, but perfectly, understands him. He doesn't want to hurt her –not because he has a conscience or compassion, but because pain isn't his objective. He wants control, he wants power –and as long as she obeys, as long as she plays his game, he won't harm her. There's something else, though, she senses. He wants to show her something. She can almost see it, something that stirs in the man's visage, something focused not on Alisandre, but something else, something absent in the ink-scented alley.  

The moment passes.

He snaps back, and without waiting for Alisandre's reply, he roughly escorts her down the alley. He leads her to an unassuming door, graced with a barren plaque mid-chest. He touches the plaque with his signet ring. A pulse of numina passes from the man to the bronze plate: an engraving of his signature suddenly appears, then disappears along the plaque's surface. As it does, a tumbler clicks and the door swings open.

Xedric steps inside, half-dragging his disguised relative. The door closes behind them, locking ominously. Hearing the door latch, he releases Alisandre, then mimes putting something into a box as a silent reminder of their 'arrangement'. He then leaves her, heading to a daubstone counter. Behind it, a tangle of wires and mechanical devices spill from a half-dozen compartments. Nodules blink, elyctrochemical lights flash, gears whirr. A subsonic hum prickles Alisandre's skin, an alien pressure she feels in her teeth. Other than the strange equipment, the room is bare. No chairs, no decorations diminish the industrial austerity of the room's tin-plated walls and ceiling.  

Xedric goes to ring a bell –but is interrupted by a thin woman that steps from an unseen alcove behind the counter. No mask conceals her grotesque, lopsided face. A massive tumor pulses on the left side of her head, creating cancerous ripples that ebb and flow over a gnarled eye-socket and ruptured ear. A single, seeing eye stares out at Xedric, barely noting Alisandre's presence.

If the magister is repulsed by the woman's appearance or indecency, he does not show it. Instead, his demeanor is one of familiarity.

"I need a message sent-," he says simply, "-to the usuals."

"Contraplex?" she asks in a monotone voice.

Xedric shakes his head, "No, I don't need their replies. They don't have a say."

"Standard rate," the deformed woman responds matter-of-factly.

Xedric nods. He passes her a pouch that rattles like loose marbles. She slides him pen and paper. He eagerly takes both and begins scribbling something just beyond Alisandre's sight. Wordlessly, he passes it back.

She does not read it, or if she does, she does so with a swiftness that Alisandre cannot grasp. The woman instead reaches into the pile of flickering apparatuses and draws forth a syringe-like device, its lever connected to a series of wires. She checks the oscillating gauges, adjusts a few dials, then plunges the syringe into her cranial tumor. She grimaces as she pulls back the plumb, drawing a strange incarnadine fluid. Then, with the syringe simultaneously jabbed into her skull and connected to her bizarre devices, she begins to trace Xedric's message. Once, then twice with utmost precision. Then again and again, gaining greater speed with each iteration. The gauges quiver, lights flash, and the strange pressure builds. Alisandre's fingers twitch. Xedric remains quiet, but Alisandre notes his fingers also spasm, ticking in disconcerting synchronization with her own.

Slowly, the woman's motions slow. The pink ichor steadily evaporates, and the pressure decreases to its 'normal' intensity. Alisandre's fingers stop twitching.

Grimacing once more, the deformed woman retracts the syringe from her skull. A pus-like substance leaks from the minute wound.

"Message sent and received," she says, without aplomb or doubt.  

Xedric grins fiercely, then motions for Alisandre to follow as he turns to leave. As before, the door unlocks at his approach, swinging open for the pair to depart.

He hustles back to his carriage, kicking out his elderly valet just as he did his groom. He shouts at Meng-Yao to return to his "ghul-lipped mistress," and inform her that her "monkey's replacement will be late." Shrouded by his hijab, the driver's expression is hidden, but Alisandre can sense his long gaze.

Once more, he lashes his wolf-horse, and drives the spliced animal to dash away, Alisandre beside him, off into the sinking sun, away from the splendors of Skein's east side. As they cross the flotsam-churned Radula, he barks at her, grinning manically:

"Let me show you where you'll be buried!"[/ic]

[ooc]You take 2 Might damage from Xedric's rough treatment. Also, please remember to post your current Pools at the end of each post, especially since you've been spending Grit.

That said, your ride allows you to make a recovery roll if you wish. You also have time to speak and ask Xedric things during the ride -though if you do, you need to make a deception check since you need to both disguise your demeanor, voice, and intent. And since your last check was a similar bluff, your Vogue Whim increases the DC.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The Watchman escorts Catena inside the mud-colored blockhouse, leading her past its electrified fence, sentinel automata, and turreted roof. There is an oppressive vigilance to the structure, a stifling gaze that brooks no questioning. Within, the ambience is little different. Although none of the Watchmen within stop Catena and her escort, dozens of eyes follow her with unveiled suspicion. Watchmen halt mid-sentence as she passes by; they close doors to hide pinned maps and marked heliotypes. Only when they reach the elevator and the floor below does the unnerving tenor relent. There, they pass an office where two bureaucrats sip sour-whiskey and trade bedroom boasts. From another office, a gramophone blares the operatic tones of Yvonne-Pei and Malibran's Fifth Aria. Further down the lone corridor, the sounds of sparing and taunts echo.

The Watchman follows those sounds, leading Catena into a room dominated by a pugilist's ring. Sweat and old blood permeate the air, while an elyctric lamp buzzes angrily above. Old wanted posters –wantonly defaced with crude pictures or slurs- plaster the walls. In a corner, an absconded statue of a St. Sothis, the Justicar-Saint of rabid fervor, serves as an impromptu rack for helmets and codpieces. A half-dozen Watchmen, stripped of their armor and vigilant mien, smoke cigars and fraternize while two of their peers spar against one another in a ring roped off with scavenged grounding cable.

Inside the ring is Red Mei. Like her opponent and other comrades, she is stripped down to her cotton undergarments. Sweat glistens over her taut, pale-fleshed muscles. She dances on her feet like a predatory cat, dodging and weaving with ease against her taller, long-limbed opponent. Her red-dyed wig sits haphazardly on a ring-post, leaving her red-tattooed eyes unobscured on her sloped brow. Below, her nose is splotched with yellow-brown bruises that stand out starkly against her albino skin.

She winks at Catena as she enters, then drops low as her sparring partner delivers a fatigued haymaker. She simultaneously lunges to his side, spins left and backfists the man with an agonizing kidney-shot. He crashes to his knees in pain. He attempts to surrender, but Mei throws a jab to his jaw, snapping his head widely. He blacks out, crumpling to the saw-dusted planks.

His comrades cheer, offering compliments to Mei and condolences to the downed man. Mei checks his pulse, then smacks his cheek. Once he rouses, she motions for one of her subordinates to help him up. She then saunters over to the side of ring that faces Catena and leans heavily on the synthetic rope.

"Thanks for bringing her down, Sergeant," she says to Catena's escort with the barest hint of a Chattelchatter dialect. The man bows, then turns to leave. Mei halts him though, saying, "Ah, Delune, sit for a spell and have a cigar whilst me and my old pal have a chat in my office."

"Unless-" she taunts, turning to Catena, "-she'd like to have that chat in the ring."[/ic]

[ooc]Red Mei and Catena have a checkered past. She helped Catena learn enough Hellspeak to get around when the latter first arrived in Skein, taught which wards to stay out, which districts to steer clear off as a 'subhuman'. Red Mei never shared how she escaped from Dolmen, and she's never asked Catena about her's. Since then, they've crossed paths, sometimes on the same side of the law as allies, other times as rivals hunting the same bounty, sometimes with Catena's head having the bounty. Still, Red Mei has always been friendly to Catena -sometimes too friendly for Catena's liking, as Mei's bruised nose attests.[/ooc]    

[ic]Alisandre's heart and mind race as her brother seizes her.

"I-I'm no one, m'lord," she begins, "my mistress merely wished..."

She fights the double urges to gag and break character as the enraged, drug-addled man spits in her mouth. Could she kill him? Maybe. He was a big man, certainly stronger than her, but nigrimancy had its ways of evening odds. Seeing him scream as his bones melted to goo within his arms would be satisfying. But it would gain her nothing. He'd know it was her, that his half-sisters had conspired together, and everything they'd accomplished today would be naught. Killing him? Even if--a rather large if--she was able to, that would be even more useless. Father would simply name another one of her many half-siblings as heir. A sibling who had not, in fact, sullied the family's reputation as part of a larger conspiracy to usurp the previous heir. She needed Xedric alive.

Besides, killing his reputation would be far more satisfying than killing him.

And so the lie tumbles out. Alphosine merely wished to follow his movements. It wasn't spying, not really, it was just... well... her mistress only wanted to know... Alisandre's heart relaxes as Xedric seems to swallow the 'frightened, ignorant servant' act, though not by much. Her own person clearly remains in danger, even if Alphosine and the larger plot have been saved.

The necromancer briefly considers incapacitating her half-brother and force-feeding him lethe-wine, then dumping him somewhere by a low-class tavern or drug den. It wouldn't raise too many questions--ashamed over losing his temper, he ran off to drink and drug away his woes, doing so to disgusting excess. The scandal of being found face-down in the mud would certainly do nothing to help his already damaged reputation.

But, if her instincts were right, there might be a real prize to be won through playing along...

"I-I'll do anything you want, m'lord," she stammers, telling her half-brother what he wants to hear. "J-just please don't hurt me."

Alisandre the maid remains a picture of frightened silence during their carriage ride, eyes downcast, hands fumbling nervously. Alisandre the magistra simply has no wish to stretch the deception any further than necessary. Yes, the man was drugged, nor was he especially clever, but they were still siblings. The fewer words exchanged, the better. And frankly, his company was already starting to get tiresome...

She endures the visit to the nameless building in similar silence, meekly following Xedric's lead. The transmitted 'message' more than piques her interest--that has to be something important for such a... nonconventional means of communication to be necessary.

As the carriage rattles off, Alisandre suppresses a laugh at Xedric's threat. Show me my burial site? Dear brother, I've been working on the design plans since I could hold a pen. If you wish to frighten me, you could take me to my old bedroom closet instead--I think I've spent less time there.

But such thoughts remained unvoiced. She simply buries her head in her arms, a frightened servant who wants the nightmare to be over.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools before recovery: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 8/11 (1), Intellect 11/17 (1). (Different values from earlier, as I read the Grit rules wrong and deducted fewer points than I should've.)

Pools after: Might 7/8 (0), Agility 10/11 (1), Intellect 15/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ooc]Also, making two recovery rolls, distribution of points to be edited into my previous post.

[blockquote]Rolled 2d6+2 : 4, 1 + 2, total 7[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The faux-nightmare continues as Xedric violently spurs his chimeric beast across the western city. As dusk falls, they reach the Maggotorium: the makeshift bazaar at the confluence of the Ebon, Indigo, and Cemetery wards. There, off-duty grave-diggers sell corpse-fat worms to fishermen, vermeologists, and undiscriminating grocers. Dirge-witches advertise their services by rending their sack-clothed raiment, causing the ensorcelled garments to wail in pain and anguish. Others cry rivulets of blood, sing numina-steeped laments, or command skeletal pallbearers to caper and dance. Coffin-makers, tombstone-librettists, and back-alley morticians do business from votive-lit shops and black-draped stalls.

Xedric ignores the funeral-mongers and their coin-light customers. A few brazen entrepreneurs attempt to gain his attention, but he drives them back with his carriage-whip. Seeing his foul mood, the masses part, allowing the magister clear passage through St. Qaspiel's Gate. Crossing its acid-pitted barbican and helminthoid palisade, they enter the cemetery proper.

Shrouded in deepening gloom, the Cemetery's skyline resembles a forest of age-worn stelae, obelisks, and crypt-steeples. Within the perantique expanse of the Mosswine Barrows, the headstones look as old as the hills. Their names and dates have been worn away by the patient, but relentless wind. Even the stony justicar-cherubs have been scoured faceless; only the lichenous hollows of their eyes remain. To Alisandre, those pits glare at the intrusion of the quick. But their stony accusers are silent, content that time will make the trespassers will pay with their lives, to rejoin them, welcome and justly dead.

Subdued by the quiescent pall, Xedric slows the carriage to a respectful crawl. Almost in unison, the half-siblings breathe in the twilight air. To a Mei-Vourne, it is as if tasting an old vintage's bouquet: delighting in the aroma of millennia-distilled bones and long-consummated rot. Xedric sighs. His countenance loses much –but not all- of its manic fervor. His eyes pass over the shadows, searching for something among the countless gravesides. His hands steer the cab down forsaken paths, winding between smoothed barrows of earth and rock.

Eventually, he stops the carriage at the base of large burial mound, prominent even among the Mosswine's tumuli. A slanted dolmen marks its entrance. Its lintel is graven with ancient, now indecipherable runes that glow in the gibbous moonlight.  

Xedric pays them no heed. He steps from the chiropteran-hooded cab and unharnesses the wolf-horse. He brushes its lupine muzzle, then releases it to hunt among the hills. Silently, he then bids Alisandre to follow him up the mound. Together, they climb the mossy hill.

From its height, Alisandre has a starlit vista of Skein and its surroundings. To the north, the Slouching-Devil Mountains swallow the lower sky. To the south, the Clockwork City rises in brazen verticality, its eastern shore aglow with sepia gaslamps and elyctric lines, its nacred spires glistening like moonsweat. And to the west, hidden in the darkness, she makes out the faintest outline of her home: the crypts of House Mei-Vourne.  

Xedric, however, does not gaze outward. Instead, he stands head downcast. He murmurs a barely audible mantra:

"Control... control. Like stone. Stone. Still. In control... like stone."

Eventually the murmurs stop. He then looks up, not at Alisandre, but out into the darkness, his expression cold, hard.

"Now we wait for the others."

He does not elaborate.

Time creeps. Distantly, the Palace of Chimes rings out, proclaiming Ze, the eleventh hour, half-spent.

Shortly thereafter, the others arrive. They trickle in, as if directed by some unseen stagehand's signal. Their transports speak of privilege and power. A carapaced stagecoach pulled by elaborately coiffed stallions. A gilded rickshaw hauled by a glass-headed automaton. A pair of saddled terror-birds. A steam-powered gyrocycle. An ur-tapir with a silken howdah. The spectacular mounts and vehicles soon surround the tumulus.

From such conveyances, figures ascend the barrow. In the darkness, their features are veiled, but Alisandre can make out the accoutrements of wealth and prestige. Like Xedric, they are primarily masked magisters attended by valets or handmaidens. Others, however, complete the silent congregation: warriors scarred with countless blows, hardened by nameless back-street battles and worse.

Wordlessly, they form a large circle around the mound's apogee. Two figures, however, break from the ring and approach Xedric, who waits with clenched jaw.

The first figure carries a hooded lantern, its interior lit by unsettling moth-shaped lights that flit and batter against the cracked glass. As the figure approaches, the flickering, gray-hued radiance reveals an old magistra. Her back is bent, her gait slow, but there is strength that radiates from her bones: an iron will unbowed by time. She wears a plague-doctor's mask, pungent vapors hissing from its articulated vents. A diminutive demon, resembling a three-eyed screech owl, rides atop the magistra's wig.

The other figure holds a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. Tall and broad-shouldered, the figure is shrouded by a flowing chadri of black silk. In the gloom, Alisandre barely makes out the glint of two eyes staring through a lattice of cloth-of-gold fibers and see-through muslin.  Large hands, clad in iron-studded cestuses, gently grip the delicate flowers.

"There are rules, Mason," the magistra says. Her voice, though distorted by her leathery mask, is severe and disapproving.

"I know, Lanterneer," Xedric says with a mixture of defiance and deference.

"You know, yet your break them," she reprimands.

"We're not to meet till next Molting's Eve," the shrouded figure adds. The voice is deep, with an uncultured accent.

"I know-," Xedric repeats, his face somewhat flushing, "-but I-"

"You!" the magistra snaps, "You do not summon the Ring."

"But the Ring is summoned all the same," Xedric snaps back, his teeth gritted, "So either send them away, or let us do what we came here to do."

The magistra hesitates. Her familiar fidgets. The moth-lights continue to silently smash themselves against the lantern's glass.

She looks to her taller companion. He shrugs.

"So be it," the Lanterneer replies in a steely voice, "But we shall discuss your infraction –and its penalty- later."

Xedric grimaces. His eyes, however, burn with fierce pride.

"This is your Second, Mason?" the deep-voiced figure says, acknowledging Alisandre's presence with a slight turn of his veil.

"Yes, Florist," Xedric answers, "But she is only an Observant. Tonight, I will be the Celebrant."

"Irregular," the magistra hisses with a voice that can only come from a scowl.

"But not unprecedented," Xedric retorts.

"So be it," the Florist answers, "But choosing the other then falls to me."

Xedric jaw half-gapes to contest, but then closes in resignation. "So be it," he says as if reciting a liturgy.

As the Lanterneer walks to the center of the Ring, Xedric pulls Alisandre back to the circle's edge. "Now poppet-," he says leaning in close, so close his words drown out the Lanterneer's invocation to the assembly, "-stay here and stay quiet. Do not –do not make a sound- or a cake-box will be the last of your worries. Just watch with those jay-spying eyes, watch and witness, and remember."

Xedric then steps into the circle, motioned by the Lanterneer's hoary light. With her aid, he is striped down, nude from head to toe. Seeing his naked bulk is startling –not only of the public indecency, but due to the sight of so many scars. They litter his torso: nasty lines crooked and straight, large and small. They proclaim a litany of old punctures, stabs, and bludgeoning, a supplication of pain survived. In the ashen glow, that scar-prayer seems amplified. His body, scarred and corpulent, is still muscled, thick-boned and strong. Xedric stands proudly, unashamed.

Meanwhile, the Florist reverently breaks off the heads of the pale mums, slowly spreading them in a ring not ten paces wide, an inner circle where the Lanterneer and Xedric stand. When all the blossoms are shed, he steps into the crowd. Silently, he taps a beshadowed magister who nods, then motions for his second to enter the ring.

Tall, but not as stout as Alisandre's half-brother, the selected man approaches the Lanterneer. Sallow-skinned and slant-eyed, the man has a long-plaited pony-tail of jet hair that stands in stark contrast to Xedric's now-wigless, bald pate. His eyes shine red against Xedric's indigo. Although far from callow, he is weighed by fewer years than Caraumonde's scion.

As with Xedric, the second man is stripped, his multitudinous scars laid bare and inspected under the ghoulish light. The Lanterneer and Florist then gather their clothes, handing them to their seconds. Alisandre nearly groans under the sweaty weight of Xedric's frockcoat, hose, wig, boots, and other raiment. By the time she adjusts her pile so she can see, the Lanterneer and Florist have returned to the silently waiting nude figures and have drawn curious blades. Shaped like crossed crescents fused by unknown reagents, the blades are so black they seem to drink the light around them. Ur-fossils, Alisandre realizes, talons of some unknown horror harvested from the bowels of the Slouching-Devil Mountains. The crowd, though eerily silent throughout the proceedings, tenses at the sight of the nether weapons.

So armed, the Celebrants are left alone in the ring, the Florist and Lanterneer retreating to its edge.

Xedric's grips the bone-blade tight, his face set like stone. His rival hefts the blade, a dark grin splitting across his face.

Without word, the Lanterneer opens the glass cage of her lantern, releasing the spectral moth-lights to dance and writhe over the nude bodies. At their touch, both men wince, but remain steadfastly quiet. At their touch, they charge, silent as death.[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]The younger man senses Xedric's bloodlust. As they charge, he feints, dropping his blade a finger's width. The gap in his defenses is so subtle that only a seasoned killer would have even a chance of spotting it. Yet, Xedric –as Alisandre learns- is just such a man.  His crescent-blade flashes forward in the instant before he realizes his mistake, and the younger man's weapon slides easily into the magister's corpulent gut. The moth-lights rush to the wound, garishly illuminating the violation of flesh.

Yet, by some incredible stint of willpower and stamina, Xedric neither drops nor screams. Instead, he lashes back, savagely swift, slicing off his opponent's nipple. With similarly astounding composure, the man clamps down a cry. The winged flames taste new prey.

Cradling his bleeding stomach, Xedric presses his attack. His opponent falls back under the brutal assault, their knives clacking in the quiet of the cemetery. The moth-lights dance back and forth, alighting on each moment of suffering. The younger man is quick, but in the end Xedric's controlled fury proves stronger. His opponent tries a series of clever feints, but Xedric is wise to his tricks. The magister pursues him across the ring, and it's only when their blades are locked at the very edge of the blossom-marked ring and the younger man stares defeat in its cold face that his finds his nerve. He pushes back, and with agonizing slowness, the entangled blades begin moving away from his throat and ever closer to Xedric's.  Blades locked, Xedric's cannot disengage. Sweat pours from skin. The strain tears at his wound. Blood leaks between his clenched fingers. The grey flames swarm his jollux frame.

Then, sparing one glance at Alisandre, he knuckles his empty hand, squeezing his gut's blood between his fingers, and lashes out with a low blow that makes every man in the crowd silently wince. His opponent's gasp splits the air. The shock at his noise rivals his pain. Xedric staggers back, white-faced but triumphant, moth-lights still suckling at his stomach. The spectators, keeping the ring's rule of silence, clap with disturbing solemnity.

The Lanterneer fingers her namesake object, tracing some unseen pattern, awakening some eldritch power. A spectral wind emerges, cold and piercing. It sucks up the moth-lights, drawing them one-by-one into the battered lantern. The old magistra closes its latch.

The Lanterneer and Florist step into the ring. They retrieve both blades, reverently wrap them, then stow them under their robes. Then, without fanfare or benediction, the congregation disperses. The defeated celebrant limps away, shame-faced and subdued; his patron clearly displeased. With a practiced hush, the noiseless congregation returns to their mélange of mounts and vehicles. They leave without a parting word, vanishing into the night. Four figures remain on the barrow's crown.

Xedric has collapsed in pain, his wound a sickly sight, his face blanched and sweating. The Lanterneer stands over him.

"For your infraction," she whispers with grave finality, "For taking the rules into your own hands, for your selfish disregard of our traditions, you will bear that pain. Alone. No other aid can you seek or accept, save that of your Second. This is your penance. And should it kill you... so be it.

"So be it," the Florist murmurs in assent.

"S-so... be i-it," Xedric echoes between gasps.

Seeing he understands their decree, the Florist and Lanterneer depart.

Silence once more descends upon the barrow.[/ic]

[ic]Alisandre breathes in the cemetery's musky, grave-laced air like a fine wine. Indeed, it's all she can do to keep up the pretense of fright. As she sees the madwine pass from her brother's eyes, she can't help but feel a moment of shared pride in their heritage. This place was theirs. Their family cared for it when neither the Moth-Kings, nor the magisters, nor any of Skein's rulers would. If nothing else, her brother was still a Mei-Vourne. If nothing else, the same blood that made them caretakers of the dead, that same blood which flowed through his veins, flowed through hers as well.

But then the moment passes. Yes, they were blood. And he'd still made father cast her out. He'd stolen everything. He'd spat on all that blood should have meant.

She mutely nods as Xedric tells her to watch and observe the proceedings. Only too happy to, brother dearest. If only you knew. Now what have you gotten yourself into...?

Alisandre holds her breath as the naked combatants clash. Damn it all, she needs the man alive. She could intervene... a problematic enough matter to keep her identity hidden from just him, let alone all these people...

She lets out a breath as her brother triumphs, however, sparing her the dilemma.

Only for his fellows to leave him to die. Presenting her with a new one.

The incantation to a flesh-rotting hex runs through Alisandre's mind. It would be so easy to end his life... make him pay for everything he'd done... it didn't have to be fast, either. There was time. There were no witnesses. She could drop this charade, reveal who she was, and make him pay, knowing exactly why all the while...

But it would gain her nothing. There were other heirs--and Symus, Patrois, still other conspirators. In the end, practicality wins out.

She looks down at her brother's wounded form and coldly states,

"Information. Give me information to bring back for my mistress, and I'll help you. Or don't, and I'll feed your corpse to the scavengers here. Piece by piece. Whatever's left can rot in a dung heap somewhere." She fights to keep the pleasure from her face. "Not so grand an internment as your family usually prefers, is it, Mei-Vourne?"

Should Xedric accept these terms, she continues.

"Who are these people? Why are you willing to die for their traditions? Why did you call this combat?"[/ic]

[ooc]Rolling intimidation. Difficulty is reduced by one for being a speciality.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2

Pools: Might 7/8 (0), Agility 10/11 (1), Intellect 15/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Xedric laughs. Between groans of pain, but he laughs.

"S-so.. ah-aha, uhnn... poppet's got a spine, n-now?"

He grunts, trying to rise, then lays back down in pain.

"I've survived... ugh... w-worse then t-this. Plenty... times."

Bravado marks his works, both false and true.

Weakly, he continues, his heavy-lidded eyes staring at the star-smeared sky:

"Stupid... girl... I know you're just a... ugh, c-commoner... but you ask... y-ou... how could possible understand..."

His sweat, now cold in the night air, causes him to shiver. He grunts with pain from the spasms. Propping himself, unabashed despite his nudity, he growls at her, pointing with his blood-stained hand:

"C-come here girl and bring... my clothes... or I'll snap that ugly head off..."

Crooking a finger, he smiles. It is not a nice smile.

"Do it snappish... sheathe... and I might j-ust explain what your simple mind... failed to comprehend... ughh..."[/ic]

[ooc]Attempt failed. But I definitely appreciate you posting your Pools.[/ooc]

[ic]"Perhaps you have survived worse, Lord Mei-Vourne. But does your family not acknowledge that death comes for all, that no matter how many times one bests him at the game, he will always win the final hand? I would not be so quick to play another round with him, were I you. Your present odds do not appear favorable."

Alisandre drops the man's pants at his feet. Close enough to retrieve, but far enough he'll have to stretch... at least a little bit. His other clothes remain in a pile.

"That should be sufficient for purposes of basic modesty. Further articles will be forthcoming with your cooperation."

Part of her, though, hoped his cooperation wouldn't be so forthcoming. She needed her brother alive, yes. In pain, however... well, if he wouldn't spill on his own, she would be more than happy to extract answers through less pleasant means of inquiry. Her scalpel had seen little enough use of late.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools: Might 7/8 (0), Agility 10/11 (1), Intellect 15/17 (1)

Deception check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Xedric growls in rage as Alisandre so flagrantly disobeys him. Pain cuts short his stream of invectives, however, and in his silence, he listens to the woman's voice and words. He grows quiet, then grimaces as a shiver runs through his pain-wracked body.

He clutches his hosiery and presses it against his wounded gut, attempting to staunch the blood-flow. Bleary and blanched with pain, he scans the night-clad barrows, then turns to regard his guised half-sister. His eyes narrow, becoming indigo slits:

"No commoner would... dare speak to a magister like thus..."

Another shiver wracks him. He hisses in pain. 

"You should have... held your tongue, poppet... it's betrayed you..."

"Now..." he says, shifting his bulk to firmly eye Alisandre, "You're going to, uhnn... tell me who you are... or I'll be calling Lucretius... and have him rip out that... tongue and eat it before I... truly begin to hurt you..."[/ic]

[ooc]Any further talking and you'll need to make another deception roll... and Vogue Whim will apply. Should you take an overt action such as a hex or attack, you'll need to hit a DC 3 Agility check.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre stares down at her half-brother with growing impatience. Truthfully, deception had never been one of her strong points; Alphosine was the social one. She related better to people under.... more direct terms.

You should have held your own tongue, brother. I will not suffer threats from you, she thinks.

The flat of her scalpel descends towards his head.[/ic]

[ooc]Attacking Xedric.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3

Agility check to take an action. Spending 1 level of grit to reduce the difficulty by 1.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3

Attacking him with my scalpel. 2 damage if it hits, difficulty reduced by 1 for being a light weapon. Spending another level of grit to do 3 extra damage. All nonlethal, she 'only' wants to knock him out for torture later.

Pools: Might 7/8 (0), Agility 7/11 (1), Intellect 15/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ooc]Requested Agility defense roll.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Xedric tries to call for his beast, but Alisandre is too quick.

The scalpel's weight gives her fist extra force. Her blow comes crashing down on the Xedric's head.  His meaty skull takes the blow, though. If he were hale, he would have dodged the attack –if he was not distracted by his pain, distracted by the strange weapon and its grip, he might have deflected it. She strikes him again, sure to leave nasty bruises against his pudgy jaw and spider-veined temple.

He grunts with pain both fresh and old.

His arms snake out and embrace Alisandre in a crushing vice. The grip is so tight it drives the breath from her lungs. Pinions of light fill her eyes as he grounds down into her left shoulder with his bloody nails. She thrashes to escape, but his hold is too strong. Violently, he spins her around, still mashing her shoulder while his free hand gropes for her mask. He half-rips it off, tearing the buckles –but before her guise slips away, Alisandre elbows Xedric hard in his wounded gut. He falls back, howling in pain, spitting and frothing. As he collapses, she slips out of his terrible grip –but there is an agonizing 'pop' as her shoulder dislocates.

Both siblings are left on the bloodied ground, moaning in his or her own private pain.

Xedric tries to call out to Lucretius, but agony –if not increasing blood-loss- steals his voice.[/ic]

[ooc]You take 8 damage, dropping you down the health track. Your turn.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre cries out as her shoulder dislocates, stumbling to her knees. Her breath is hoarse, ragged, fogging in the cool night air. Her eyes cut across the graveyard, desperately searching for any corpses to reanimate as deathless defenders... then, when none are apparent, for any other potential weapons to turn against her half-brother.

The grand barrow is desolate. In the dim starlit, Alisande can make out the vestiges of the chrysanth ring, the mossy depressions of where once a silent crowd gathered, the blood where men and now siblings fought.

Xedric's clothes, however, remain... and they are near. Her eyes glance over the sweat-stained garments, the burden she so recently hefted -the burden he so recently demanded. Pain still tainting her sight, she scans the now-spread heap. Several items stand out: A gentleman's basilard, gem-crusted and obsidian bladed rests in a feather-shapped sheathe. His heavy jack-knife boots, made of black-dyed ghul-hide, with nob-nails. And a hexed pistol, the caricature of a fanged demon gnawing at its snub-nosed barrel.

The necromancer half-scrambles, half-lunges, towards her half-sibling's pile of discarded clothing, knees sore against the ground. She bites back a curse as a new wave of pain shoots through her dislocated shoulder. The newest of many slights for which he will pay.

Xedric hardly notices her stumbled flight. Dimly, still struggling to regain his breath, he notes her destination. He growls, hissing curses at her. Then slowly, painfully, he drags himself forward. Dumbly his fingers reach out to grab her ankle, her foot... but she is beyond his injured reach. Bathed in the sallow radiance of night, he is revolting. Blanch-faced, drenched in sweat, smears of blood and slick moss over his obese nude form, a corpulent grave-whale beached on the tumulus' crown.

Alisandre grabs one of her half-brother's heavy boots, hefting it with her uninjured arm. Boots. A sad day indeed, that these must stand in for nigrimancy. The ghul-hide shoe flies towards his head. No little amount of disgust on Alisandre's part guides the throw.

The heavy boot flies into Xedric's face. He gurgles at the impact, spittle and blood mixes at the nails hammer into his dumb-founded expression. The blow rocks his head.

He is overcome.

He lays still, drooling and bleeding on the cold barrow. His heavy bulk shudders as he breathes. Shallowly, but still.

Alisandre's own breath comes in a series of heavy pants. Nevertheless, her blistered face wears a triumphant smile. She immediately begins searching his clothes and the nearby environs for a suitable means of restraining her comatose half-sibling.

Nearby, she spots Xedric's baldric... and a little further, his blood-sopped hose.

Alisandre's gaze lingers on her half-brother's wound, and she recalls enough of her medical training to recognize that the man will not survive a trip back to the familial crypts, much less prolonged torture, in his present condition. Sighing, she mouths the words to an incanatation in Morbis, and rotting grave-grubs burst forth from the soil. A wave of their mistress' hand sends them burrowing into Xedric's flesh, greedily consuming the infected tissue... but bound by her commands, they take nothing else, and can do little more than writhe and squirm in displeasure. Several further summoning incantations see the rest of the 'field hospital' and its equipment sterilized under a minor demon's red-hot, germ-destroying tongue. The diminutive, winged creature sputters in indignity, its yellow saliva sizzling as it hits the ground, but the fiend is bound by her magic and compelled to obey. After snipping off some thread from her brother's coat, Alisandre raises her scalpel--used just moments ago to bash in the patient's skull--and attempts to save the life of the man who ruined hers.

Her flame-charred fingers work deftly in the night. Aided by her necromantic hexes and long-practiced skills as a mortician, she sews up her half-brothers guts. More than once, she nearly loses him. It is fortunate he is unconscious -for the pain of her operation would be ghastly... and his screams, however enjoyable, would be an unnecessary distraction. And he were thrashing... the task would be impossible for all save the most skilled chirurgeon. Instead, her patient is still, deathly so... but she is most comfortable with the blanched cadavers. Sweat pours from her brow, her left shoulder still painfully injured, every jostle sending another shiver of torment. The ur-bone wound seems to fight against her efforts. Tiny fragments seem to still gnaw at his bowels. He is fortunate he is so fat; otherwise, his organs surely would have been pierced and beyond salvation. In the end, she saves him. He will live... at least for a little while. Her arms are smeared in the lard and blood of her brother. Her fingers, shoulder, and mind beg for release. Inside, Xedric's gut is a nasty snarl of sewn fibers, a labyrinth that would terrify any seamstress of physician. If he survives to see the dawn, the operation will heal slowly, painfully, and never fully.

"No, don't thank me," Alisandre deadpans in an exhausted voice, teeth half-clenched from her own unabated pain. She stares at her half-brother's pallid, sweaty, bloody, obese, and stark-naked form, with no little disgust for both the sight itself and her own actions in preserving it.

"You never were one to be grateful, I know that well enough. But don't worry. I will ensure you have little enough reason to be grateful in short order."[/ic]

[ooc]Results of a minor IRC session between False Epiphany and me. Bold is GM.[/ooc]

[ic]Xedric's worthless life saved, Alisandre finds two corpses to reanimate and with their help, ties, blindfolds, and gags her half-sibling. They carry him as far they can before their mistress is able to procure a coffin, which Xedric is locked inside. A few summoned minor demons clean Alisandre of his caked blood and gore, while a series of very, very, painful arm stretches and rotations serve to relocate her screaming shoulder. The rest of the long walk back to Belphia's crypt passes in silence. By the time she arrives home, Alisandre's mind, feet, and arm are numb. She wants only to rest.

Finding a servant of the family bricoleur present on Alphosine's behalf, Alisandre dimly realizes--but is too exhausted to fully appreciate--that her decision to store her kidnapped half-brother in a coffin has saved her a great deal of further trouble.

Also dimly realizing that Alphosine must be worried absolutely sick, Alisandre summons up her last reserves of energy to compose a note for her half-sister. When the servant hems and haws over Alisandre taking too long, saying that being a courier isn't part of her job, the necromancer nearly slaps her but instead merely snaps,

"Do as I say, girl. Do I look as if I am in ANY state of mind to argue?!"

After the note is finished and servant dispatched, Alisandre numbly leans back against the wall. Sparing one last glance at Xedric's coffin, guarded by her two deathless servants, she closes her eyes and rests--happy in the knowledge that at least one person had an even more harrowing night than she did.[/ic]

[ooc]3 Intellect points spent on the zombies. Recovery roll:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

The note contains everything we discussed; letting Alph know she's ok, that the 'problem' is 'contained', and that she should stop by Alis' home at her earliest convenience with some of the 'tea we mentioned' to hear the full story. No specific/identifying names.

She also takes Xedric's whistle from the carriage. Not because she's particularly eager to summon his wolf-horse, but just to make his life difficult in yet another way.

Pools pre-recovery: Might 0/8 (0), Agility 2/11 (1), Intellect 10/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ooc]Left out the +1 to my recovery roll. 5 points to distribute.

Pools post-recovery: Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 11/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic]
"This opportunity is far too timely to be wasted," Xavier figures, a newfound determination in his voice. "I need that print done. As for your concerns, you can hide in my lab until we've got you back into the Skulls; it's cramped and chock full of equipment but better than anywhere in the Harrow-House. With a bit of disguise work, we could even try and frame your death should we happen upon a similar-lookin' bypasser." He adds the last words with a knowing grin.
[/ic]

[ooc]
Intellect check, spending 2 Grit:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Stat pools:
Might 10/10 (0), Agility 14/14 (1), Intellect 8/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]Maryse-Liang accepts Xavier's proposal with a gap-toothed grin: a black void sits glaringly where once a golden tooth resided. She leads the young assassin deep into the Harrow-House's bowels. There, in catacombs slick with slime and spiderwebs, she shows Xavier the hidden caches of the dissembled printing press. Together, they rebuild the prolix device, Xavier's mechanical aptitude assisting Maryse-Liang's long-practiced expertise. As a final piece to the puzzle, the ex-Skull locks her gearborg arm into the maze of cogs, belts, rolling wheels, and wires. She then instructs Xavier to attach a quartet of electrodes to her ungifted skin. "I'm the battery," she says wryly, "My ticker's the juice for this here ink-pimp."  She grimaces as her body and wires complete the circuit, and with a painful jolt, the printing apparatus comes to life, clanging and clattering against the stones like a chthonic woodpecker. "You'll have to do it, Xav," she says from a clenched jaw, "-as I'm a bit occupied. But no sweat, love, just follow my instructions and it'll be fine." The process is complicated, and the catacombs are dark save for Maryse's vial-sized gas-globe. Fortunately, Xavier's prosthetic eye and nimble hands prove up to the task.

Yet, as the machine rolls out the first ink-thin pamphlet, the jostling device gives an ominous clang. A screw -improperly secured- falls down into the morass of moving parts. A piston misfires, wires surge, and the thing bucks like a demon-possesed mare, cracking the stone beneath it. Maryse-Liang attempts to shout some command, but a backlash of electricity causes her to violently convulse. Her eyes snap back to her skull, and her body begins to spark and spasm with manic intensity. The smell of burnt grease and smoking hair fills the air.

As the press continues to rock and vibrate with ever greater fury -with the twitching, now unconscious gearborg locked into it- Xavier hardly has time to comprehend the growing catastrophe before his grafted eye spots something in the darkness. Something watching him with lurid hunger. Drawn to the machine's mad oscillations and Maryse's pain-wracked jig, it crawls forward.

Eight legs like obscene stilettos tap against the muck-ridden walls. They twitch and rattle as if calling to the gyrating machine with tentative lust. Eight eyes -pitch-black and bulbous- stare with alien desires from a grotesque fusion of head and torso. Engorged chelicerae glisten with strange ichor that seeps and squirts onto the noisome floor.

Seeing Xavier stand in front of its salacious obsession, the monstrous thing tenses, then leaps with horrific strength and speed![/ic]

[ooc]Ah, the 1. Roll Initiative. If you beat a 2, go first. It's an Intellect task for you to 'unplug' Maryse-Liang. Lower DC (and Agility-based) to simply snatch the mostly-complete pamphlet.  If you roll 2 or lower for your Initiative, roll an Agility defense roll (DC 3).[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Cowed by Alisandre's menace, the black-liveried servant acquiesces with a mumble.  Like all of Mei-Vourne's nursery maids, she is toothless, her teeth artfully harvested by Madame Fontanelle, the family's bricoleur governess. All the same, the maid takes the cautiously penned letter and departs.

As she goes, silence settles upon Belphia's crypt. The coffin –and its prisoner- lies still. Its cracked timber and smeared grave-dirt juxtapose poorly with the chamber's manicured opulence. Equally out of place, the two servitors stand motionless beside the coffin. Still dressed in their funerary clothes, one corpse wears a threadbare frockcoat, buckled shoes, and now-torn hosiery while the other has a white robe with fraying trim. Both have had their veils torn away and their bosoms exposed to allow Alisandre to carve her necromantic seals into their cold, bloodless flesh. Bound by the intricate, if hastily-cut sigils, subcutaneous spirits demons swim within the cadaverous flesh, giving it a syncopated animacy.     

Time passes, and the silence endures. Without her mask, Alisandre hears the deafening emptiness, but she is so very tired. Her trails, both physical and mental, have drained her.

Alisandre's lids hang heavy. They close, unbidden. She hears Xedric gagged breathing, steady if muted. Shortly after Dzou, the twelfth hour, the servitors' sigils lose their potency. First the robed body, then the frocked one collapses loudly against the marbled floor. They lie like a spilled matchbox of cold limbs. Demonic essence drools from their cuts: a steaming, viscous substance that hisses like frightened asps.

The sudden thumps and diabolic sibilation rouse Alisandre from her slumber. Were there dreams of frost-moths and bandaged galas? She cannot recall. Another sound disturbs her reverie. A muffled thumping.

The coffin. It jerks. Her brother has awoken.

Yet, before she can react to his waking, she hears the hurried footsteps of Alphosine descending the crypt.

"My dearest!" she cries, her frozen smile twitching incongruously with her tear-streaked cheeks. "Oh my dearest, my darling..." she continues to blabber as she throws her arms around Alisandre. Her words tumble fast and furious. She recounts her anxiety, her anger, her desperation, her determination, her agony at her sibling's ominous disappearance at the hands of their brother. She cries and kisses Alisandre's cheeks. 

Their reunion –and any chance of relating Alisandre's deeds-  are interrupted by the now-quiet vehement thuds and moans issuing from Xedric's coffin. At the incessant sound, Alphosine looks around, noticing the casket and cadavers for the first time.

"Oh, oh, no, please, please tell, Alisandre, please tell me you didn't..."[/ic]

[ooc]Perhaps I've done the math wrong, but did you recall to subtract the Intellect cost twice? Once for each servitor?[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre hugs her sister back, murmuring "I'm all right," "he didn't hurt me," and other words of reassurance between Alphosine's sounds of distress. To ears which did not already know Alisandre as a sibling and confidante, those same words would have sounded clumsy and awkward; she was better at making others want for comfort than providing it herself. Still, sincerity conveys what eloquence does not, and the necromancer's own relief is more than evident. Last night had been a dangerously close call.

As the banging from Xedric's coffin disturbs both siblings, Alisandre leans in close to Alphosine and whispers her reply:

"He lives."

"He does not know my identity."

"He will be returned home, alive--but that is another thing he need not know."

Another loud groan and series of thuds emit from Xedric's coffin.

"Just a moment," Alisandre mutters.

The necromancer's hands swirl through the motions of her eldritch learning, intoning words of power in Morbis. A morass of inky black energy flows from her palm towards the dull runes on one of her servants, infusing them with spectral demonic faces whose mouths contort into silent shrieks and hisses before fading. The corpse shuffles up. Alisandre issues several orders in Morbis, and the thing presses down on the coffin's lid, holding it fast. Let Xedric exhaust himself. Let no one answer his cries. Let him do nothing but wonder--blind, in pain, and utterly alone--what would happen to him next. Some time to stew would only make him more pliable. Alisandre could only guess how he must feel after that ghastly surgery last night. It had been unpleasant enough simply performing it.

The former scion beckons her half-sibling out of the coffin's earshot and states, "This is war, Alphosine. My half-brothers have stolen what is mine by right. I will not reclaim it through sweet words, and truthfully, I have far less skill than you at those. No, the only way I will reclaim my birthright is by tearing it from their unwilling fingers and smashing them bloody."

"Nevertheless, Xedric's immediate death does not profit me, for our father will merely name another scion. All I desire from our dear brother is information... and, perhaps, a chance to rattle his nerves."

"You should have seen what he was doing last night, Alphosine," Alisandre hisses. "It was... nothing like I'd expected, and raised far more questions than it answered. Now Xedric is here, helpless, in near-complete ignorance why. This is a chance to learn much from him, a chance that is unlikely to come again."[/ic]

[ooc]From the Necrotic Servitor description, "Alisandre can create an additional servitor for each additional point she spends." 3 (base) – 1 (Edge) + 1 (extra servant) = 3 points, if I haven't overlooked anything.

I've assumed reanimating a corpse more than once is okay (that's a no-no in previous systems we've played, but I didn't see anything against it here). If it's not, let me know and I'll edit my post accordingly.

Pools accounting for the latest servant: Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 9/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ooc]You're absolutely right about the 3-point cost. I forgot about the additive cost. And yes, you can continue to re-animate hale corpses.

Please make a persuasion check, though, in your attempt to convince Alphosine to go along with your plan, torture included.[/ooc]

[ooc]Spending 2 grit to reduce the difficulty by 2 steps.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 6/17 (1)

Edit: Oh, oh my. Let the good times roll.[/ooc]

[ooc]Know what, I really want her to go along. Spending my 1 XP on a reroll. Does the spent grit still apply? If not, I'll spend 1 point to reduce the difficulty by 1 step.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]Yes, the spent grit still applies, so you rolled an effective 8. Much better than a 1.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Initially shocked and squeamish at the thought of kidnapping, much less torturing their half-brother, Alphosine is stirred by Alisandre's impassioned speech.  

"Yes... you're right. Forgive me, my dearest, but seeing all... this, seeing you, thinking he had... thinking you were gone –it's woken me up. Before tonight, I guess I thought of this whole affair as some scandalous game, like the pranks we sisters and brothers would play against one another. But now... now I see. I realize you've not been having some grand adventure or crypt-slumber soiree, that the boys crossed the line. Your face, your hands, your birthplace... they burned them. They had no right."

"I promise you, dearest sister-" she says clutching Alisandre's hands tenderly in hers, "-that I'm here for you. If it's war, you have my armies at your disposal. I'll see you restored, whatever the cost."

To illustrate her point, the magistra sets down her baleen-woven basket and stands with a regal determination. Her eyes close. Her breathing becomes a steady rhythm. Her lips begin to murmur delicately in Hextongue. As her invocation builds, a subconscious wind stirs in Alisandre's mind: glimmers of the bandaged gala and shattered mirrors flit around her aetheric vision. Alphosine's own eyelids dance like a nightmare-trapped dreamer. Then, at the hex's crescendo, Alphosine opens her mouth impossibly wide. Avian-things fly out of it, swarming the room. They crash into the walls, the floor, ceiling, and all its occupants. As they suicidally dash themselves against such obstacles, the oneiric birds violently liquefy, splattering their targets with a kaleidoscope of aetheric pigments. So painted, the room and its occupants undergo a startling transformation.  

Instead of Belphia's crypt, the chamber now appears to be a rat-infested dungeon. The frocked servitor resembles a goat-faced demon with a loin-cloth made of its own disemboweled entrails. In Alphosine's place, a heavy-shouldered man stands. He wears a bruise-purple suit, white-silk gloves and a full-faced mask of gold-tipped chelicerae. Where Zeernebub rested inside the basket, a lobster-clawed baby drools with gaslamp eyes. Staring down at herself, Alisandre sees not her delicate fire-scarred fingers and ruffled maid's dress, but the thick, calloused hands of a man and a darkly-stained apron. Belphia's sarcophagus and adornments have been replaced by a many-geared torture-rack. The odor of piss and blood fills the room.

"A potent glammer," the guised Alphosine explains in an icy voice clearly not her own, "-born from Xedric's own fears."

Scanning the room, she-he continues, "By the décor and colors, I'd wager we're in one of House Sedaracs' inquiry-chambers. Xedric must be scared witless."

She sits down on one of the skeletal-benches now-transformed into a lantern-lit writing desk. "The dweamor affects all the senses, but it's taxing to perform-," she-he says with an fatigued sigh, "-much less maintain. I can give you a quarter hour. Maybe more."

"Before you... begin-" he-she adds "-I should tell you what I discovered from our parliamentarian friend, the one Xedric accused of poisoning and tried to strike."

"According to Aubrey -he's the son of Lord Pyrach-Quin if you didn't know..."[/ic]

[ooc]Alphosine relates the following information. Allegedly, Xedric is poisoning Caraumonde's newest bride, Proserpine. Evidently, Proserpine always has a daily glass of plum-liquor, a vintage of quetsch-brandy from her birth-year produced solely by Pyrach-Quin's distilleries. Xedric has been using this habit to poison Proserpine with an alchemical tincture that renders her barren. Aubrey is aware of the poisoning -as he told Xedric about Proserpine's habit. He even helped Xedric get his hand on most of the remaining bottles. Hence his disgust that the man would accuse him of poisoning. However, he doesn't know the specific tincture, where Xedric gets it from, or how he slips it in the bottle.

Otherwise, she discovered that Xedric was trying to get Aubrey and their bureaucrat friend, Tumais-Shinn, to sign off on a piece of legislature, one that would reduce importation taxes from Sarantos, so long as the goods are imported by Skein's merchant-companies. Xedric's interest in such imports concerns the town's nearby quarries in the Shadowglass Steppes.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre throws back her head and laughs in delight, squeezing her sibling's hands back.

"Oh, Alphosine, it's... wonderful." She blinks as her voice comes out so deep and rough-sounding. "I'd wanted to drug him afterwards, but this... yes... let him think he's been abducted by the Sedaracs, as part of some grand conspiracy... with these as your armies, my sister, victory will soon be ours."

Alisandre listens to her sister's findings with interest, then relays the details of her own escapades last night; being taken by Xedric to the graveyard, the ritual combat, the grisly surgery, all of it. While they talk, their brother is left to impotently hammer against the coffin lid--in solitude, in ignorance, in pain.

When they are finished, Alisandre states, "Signal to me when the glammer becomes too much, and we'll return him to his coffin to further stew."

Where the Mei-Vourne half-sisters left Belphia's crypt, a magister of House Sedaracs and aproned torturer now return to a nightmarish dungeon. The torturer signals to the goat-thing, which opens the coffin's lid, pulling Xedric up by his hair.

The torturer tears off his victim's blindfold, letting him take in the awful sight that awaits.

"Good mornin', m'lord," he smiles.

He punches Xedric hard in his recently-stitched stomach.

"'Ere's 'ow this'll work, yer lordship," the torturer continues. "You'll 'ear a question. Or be asked t' provide an explanation. You anwer us, truthfully, and we'll move onto th' next question. You answer them all, and you'll be returned home. Unharmed and free as a bird."

"You don't answer, or you think fer one moment, fer one fraction o' an instant," he all but spits into Xedric's ear, "that you can lie t' me, then I'll just have t' give yer lordship some... let's say, incentive..." the torturer leers between rotting teeth, "t' act with his best interests in mind."

The torturer paces around to the other side Xedric's coffin, talking all the while. "And if you're real stubborn... well, most o' my subjects learn that's a bad idea quick enough. But let's just say it's awful convenient yer by a coffin right now. And that yer pa's got so many kids."

The torturer gently pats Xedric's scarred, stitched belly. "'Course, yer lordship don't look like he's in much state t' play stubborn." His ugly face splits into a lopsided grin, and cruel, throaty laughter echoes from the cold stone walls. The goat-faced demon laughs too, a horrid sound like meat being pushed through a too-small grinder, its entrails heaving and writhing between guffaws. The magister retains a cool detachment.

The torturer offers Xedric a nasty smile, dusting off his hands as if preparing for work. "So, m'lord, as y' can plainly see, yer fate's in yer 'ands."

He leans in close again, foul breath fresh against the prisoner's face. "But I 'ope you play stubborn, 'least fer a bit. More fun..." His eyes glint with malice that is not in the least bit illusory.

The torturer begins to comb through his rack of numerous implements. Some of them feature sharp blades, others blunt ends. The form and function of several is not readily apparent... save to cause pain. The torturer eventually selects a wickedly curved steel device ending with multiple barbs, hooks, and blades, but really just Alisandre's scalpel. He slowly traces the implement across Xedric's face, his neck, his chest, letting him feel the cold steel against his skin... then tears off his hose, letting him suffer the added humiliation of exposure, and tenderly traces the device over his loins.

Finally, the torturer removes Xedric's gag.

The suited magister's icy voice sounds. It is cultured, in control, and mercilness, that of a huntsman whose dog has cornered its prey. "Tell us everything about the events our agent witnessed last night. The origins of these ritual combats. Your history with the other individuals in attendance. Why you desired our agent to see what transpired."[/ic]

[ooc]Intimidation check, which is a specialty for me.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2

Also, if the low-class accent doesn't jive with Skein, let me so I can edit it into something more setting-appropriate.

Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 6/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic]"Your office will be fine," Catena indicates.[/ic]

[ooc]Apologies for my absence.

Catena will use the rickshaw ride to make a recovery roll:

Rolled 1d6+1 : 3 + 1, total 4[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]"Have it your way," Red Mei replies with a smirk. She vaults over the sagging cable, grabs her wig, and catches a towel mid-toss from a nearby Watchman. She wipes herself dry, then waves Catena to follow.  

The lieutenant's office is cramped, but clean. Two straight-backed chairs sit opposite a tin-plated desk. A single brass-framed heliotype of Chief-Magistrate Shenn hangs on the yellow-plastered walls. Crates of confiscated material lie stacked in a corner. A pendulum clock ticks off the metronomic advance of time.  

Mei ambles to her chair. She motions for Catena to close the door and take the remaining seat. She rifles through a drawer, pulls out a snuffbox bound in shark-skinned shagreen, and insufflates a hit of perfumed powder. Offering some of the snuff to Catena, she leans back in the creaking chair and smiles:

"So, Catena, what brings you to my parlour on this fine, thrice-damned day?"[/ic]

[ooc]Glad to have you back. Please include how you allocate those recovery points. Also remember Stoic gives you another point, so you should have 5, not 4.[/ooc]  

[ic=Alisandre]Xedric's eyes quiver with fear. He winces with each caress of calloused skin and cold steel. He gasps for air once free of his gag.

Slowly, he begins to speak. His voice is weak. He grunts with pain. Once or twice, he stalls... hesitant to divulge his secrets. One flicker of motion, though, from hex-guised Alisandre and words spill from the magister's blanched lips.[/ic]

[ooc]His confession brings several revelations:

What Alisandre witnessed was a gathering of the Chrysanth Ring, a secret society that meets once a month to host a ritual battle between Celebrants. Its members are known as the Pallid Mummers. They number 12 in total plus their seconds as well as the Grey Lanterneer and Florist of Gasps. Each month, another Mummer hosts the meeting, always at some burial site (the site is always tied to the host's genealogy).  Each Mummer, as an Observant, brings a prospective Celebrant. Traditionally, the host challenges another Mummer, and their Celebrants battle as Alisandre witnessed: inside the ring of chrysanthemum petals, illuminated by the gloam-moths (Xedric is unsure whether they are demons, oneiroi, or something else, but knows they seem to feed or be drawn to pain and their touch reawakens the memories of old and new injuries), stripped nude, battle with a pair of ancient ur-bone crescent blades (Xedric claims he is the newest member and does not know their origins), and that the loser is the first one to break the silence by scream, shout, gasp of pain, etc. The Lanterneer and Florist oversee the ceremony and its relics.

Xedric similarly says he does not know the Ring's origins, but believes that it is centuries old. Membership is for life (though he suspects that they are willing to strip membership/life through murder). Deceased members are replaced by whoever is hosting the next gathering, the prospective member being the host's special Celebrant. The prospective member needs to both survive and show the proper mien to be admitted. If the latter is lacking, the prospective member is slain. Turnover among the Mummers is rare. If a Lanterneer or Florist of Gasps dies, the other is ritually killed by the Mummers. Then, the remaining Mummers battle, with the winner becoming the new Lanterneer (and his/her second becoming the new Florist of Gasps). The identities of older Mummers is unknown to younger ones, save for their initial sponsor.

Each Pallid Mummer hosts a lesser ring, with typically the champion of the lesser ring becoming the Mummer's Second (attendes of the lesser rings are ignorant of the true Chrysanth Ring).  

Xedric's original patron was Xalmas Rasch. Both attended Vlerinn-Phoi, one of the 5 Collegia of Skein. Both belonged to the same mensur club, and it was from that connection that Xalmas introduced Xedric to his lesser ring years later. Xedric has been a member for almost a full year. Xalmas's ring was in the Ebon Ward near Swinehowl Alley. Xedric's was/is in the Canopic Gardens.

Xedric's reason for showing Alphosine's 'servant' the Ring? (not in his own words) pride. He wanted to snub his half-sister and show her what a big-shot he was by belonging to such an exclusive society –and that he was a doubly dangerous man to mess with. He doesn't mention how he wanted to be in control again, to have control, but you pick up those elements all the same.

As for the actual society –they gather and fight not out of any religious commitment, nor do they bet on the battles (at least not in coin). Instead, for them, it is to experience the razor-edge between life and death. You might even call them a theosophic cult, but whose aim and interest is experiential and exoteric. If they indeed have other goals, Xedric is ignorant of them. [/ooc]

[ic]Catena stands, arms crossed, implacable, ignoring the proffered snuff with wordless disdain. The way that Red Mei has adopted the ways of the Skeinites has always disturbed her, though it also stirs some vague envy, deep within her pallid breast; it is as if her fellow has escaped a set of chains from which, for all her freedom, Catena herself will never be unshackled.

"I seek the one called Pieng-Luc - a fence of some minor regard." Unconsciously, barely perceptible elements of the Chattelchatter grammar, the rhythms of the slave-tongue, begin to seep into Catena's voice as she speaks to one of her kindred. "Unless you know the one called Xalmas - born to the family of Rasch - seen in Pieng-Luc's company." She pauses for a moment. "My business is quite legal," she adds.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools: Might 8/13, Agility 9/12, Intellect 5/7[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Red Mei grunts at Catena's aloof demeanor. Her countenance only sours at the mercenary's accented request, though she spares a chortle at the mention of 'legal' business. She waits, as if expecting Catena to say more, but when the mercenary remains silent, the gendarme-lieutenant takes her time placing her crimson wig atop her head, positioning it so her brow's tattooed eyes are firmly concealed. She then stows the snuff-box and locks the drawer with a prolix key chained to her belt. She leans back, chair groaning. In the dim-bulbed light, her sanguine wig and pasty-white skin give her the appearance of an overgrown circus mannequin.    

"I know Pieng-Luc," she says, accenting her Hellspeak, "-and I know of the disowned noble."

"I wasn't there when they pinched Pieng-Luc, but I made it my business to have one of my men assist with his interrogation. He's one of my cards, after all, so I can't have him spilling all he knows."

"So, yeah, I've read the report," she says cracking her neck, "Enough to know you're looking for the wrong person. Pieng-Luc wasn't the last the last to see Xalmas -it was a ghul streetwalker goes by a name of Tandy Suckle. I knew Tandy before she died. She and her kids used to be grease-fly catchers near Black-Souse, that is, before she ate some fluke-meat from the Maggotorium last Jubilee. Rumor has it her kids starved while she sat in her death-cocoon, that their little carcasses were her first meal. Might be true, who knows?"

"Anyways, Tandy's redacted from the official record. Higher ups called it in, not sure who. Could've been his family trying to cover up Xalmas' indiscretion. Could've been Miscegenationists not wanting to expose the scandal -the rags would have a sodding orgy with that one: magister sullies bed with nightfolk, then vanishes. It's almost as if they're afraid she ate him, afraid what else they might find. Election's only two months away, and the parliament knows the masses are hot."

She shakes her head, "Did you hear about the Rot-Briquette Riots? There was a crack-down near Baggerskin, the Watch swooped up a bunch of dissidents. But then the hit went bad, some fanatic unleashed a whole Hellsdamned horde of ashgeists. I wasn't there, but I read the report -it was ugly. Real ugly. Watchmen and seditionists infected by the dozen. Had to send in a Guillotine Squad. Used some kind of glyph-bomb to white-wash the area. Watch-Captain Yushen was killed -pompous, bigot-twitched mustache and all. He was a darling of House Verra-Qior as well as that wigged strumpet they're calling the Ambergris Debutante. They're furious. Can't interrogate geist-corpses, and a bunch of dissidents escaped. Stewards are head-hunting. Hence all the fuss upstairs. They're preparing for the fallout once word spreads. They're worried about real rioting -reprisals."

"So you can suck a gleet-sack with your 'legal business' -this mess is nasty. You don't want part of it. I don't know what happened to Xalmas. Don't want to know -and you Hellsdamned don't want to find out. And if you think I'm just going to pass on Tandy's whereabouts without so much as a song or dance from you, then you best go back to Verlum's ever-loving arms and beg for a lobotomy 'cause you ain't using what you got."[/ic]      

[ooc]Should you wish to continue this vein of inquiry, you'll need to roll a persuasion check of some kind (e.g., diplomacy, intimidate). You know Red Mei takes bribes, but also trades favors.[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric sits quietly for a moment, stroking a non-existent beard while Nibs twines itself about Hadric's torso. He stands suddenly - Nibs in tow - and seizes Otto Shamgarr's hand for a very enthusiastic handshake. "You have yourself a deal Mr. Shamgarr! Your prompt and friendly customer service has entirely convinced me of the virtues of your business. Why, I've scarcely heard a better proposition all day! We shall abduct these unsuspecting beasts and through their misfortune crowns shall pour through our delighted fingers like so much viscous, dripping honey."

"Crownssss! Honey!" Nibs exclaims.

"Indeed!" Hadric agrees."Now tell me more."

Hadric listens intently as Otto describes the docket of available jobs, variously sharing his own mostly unrelated anecdotes regarding strange and unusual creatures, and sifting through the notes and heliotypes while donning his magnificent lens - occasionally stifling a laugh at the antics of the tiny mischievous lens folk as they cavort about Otto's cabin.

Their business concluded, Hadric departs with a smile and a wave, promising speedy and efficacious hand-delivery of the delinquent oddities. With a spring in his step he sets out for the bazaars of the Crimson Ward, resuming the morning's quest for a doorman. Man, machine or beast - he will consider only the finest candidates the City of Silk has to offer. For under twenty crowns.[/ic]

[ic=Hadric]Hadric's task takes him from the piquant markets of the Tangerine Ward to the murder-bazaars of the Crimson. Traveling down the wide throughway of the Greate Souage and its shackled statues of St. Camnus, Hadric reaches his destination: the Myrmidon Souk. Located at the intersection of the Souage and Coistrels' March, far away from the gunsmoke of the Brimestone Markets, the Myrmidon Souk specializes in the sale of servants, both martial and mundane.  In the full daylight of Writhing, the Souk looks rather forlorn, barren of the teeming knot of merchants, manservants, and magisters that Gorging and Chaining bring. Still, several businesses remain open, manned by a skeleton-crew of bored shopkeepers and servant-mongers all-too eager to pass the time by hawking their wares to Hadric and his unbound demon.

So sought after, Hadric and Nibs are able to sample the Souk's various offerings. They pass by the Sexasgesimal Arms, unable to afford -or unwilling to employ- its mercenary demon-binders, goetic tomes, and argent collars. Similarly, Fetterglove's and its skin-carved, obedience-compelling garments are given only a passing glance. Across from such elite establishments, the Choler Exchange beckons with the pole-spiked heads of Dead Men from the Adumbral War. Inside, the offices of the Gold-Vambrace and Widow-Wright Merchant Company share space with ornamented training yards, a stable for itinerant Centaurs, and a half-abandoned contract-shop for the Pale Legion. Yet, it is further down the Souk, near the mercenary-favored taverns of the Sanguinary Fillet and the Gilded Poleyn, that Hadric finds more appropriate venues. Two shops in particular remain open and amenable to his needs and light-weight purse: Ratibor's Emporium of Manciples & Vadelects and the Petite Joug.

Ratibor himself presently runs his shop and happily gives Hadric a tour of his available servants-for-hire. After some fervent haggling, two options remain within the sheevra's price-range: a towering, melancholic, toothless woman named Fayre-Delun and an elderly man with a horned mynah respectively named Mr. Chen and Snitch. Ratibor introduces Hadric to both, allows them to explain their abilities and previous experience, and then quickly takes Hadric to his contract-scrivener to finalize an arrangement.

At the Joug, the proprietor Qiao-Fae –better known as Mother Manacle among the Ebon Ward waifs she collects- is absent. Instead, Hadric is serviced by a sleepy-eyed staff who languidly shows the sheevra a row of neck-shackled youth. Along the way, he gives his sales pitch between yawns. "Not slaves of course, willingly yoked." "Well-teethed, fair-faced." "All vaccinated, all deloused." "Looking for a better home, better life." "Eager to please, quick to learn." With a bamboo switch, he turns the youths around, has them open their mouths, parts their hair, and so forth to demonstrate their quality. After eliminating those already promised to other buyers and those whose "countenances exceed your purse," the heavy-lidded staff points out three youth available for employ: a straw-haired, heavy-boned prepubescent girl; a black-haired boy with distended stomach; and a slightly bow-legged adolescent boy. All three youth stare at the glowing sheevra in doe-eyed wonder, but remain silent. If the staff knows their names, he does not volunteer them.[/ic]  

[ooc]Make a persuasion check. With your expertise already added, you gain the following with results that meet or exceed the values below:

DC 1: [spoiler]Fayre-Delun reports she previously served as a bodyguard-governess and valet. Mr. Chen claims he has been a butler, manciple, cook, and sommelier. The children have no immediately relevant experience. Any can be employed by paying a 20 crown finder's fee to the Emporium or Joug. Ratibor's, however, requires that you also complete a notarized contract that includes the servant's initial duties, pay, and length of service. [/spoiler]

DC 2: [spoiler]Fayre-Delun specifically served Symos Mei-Vourne. She claims she was released when he outgrew her services. Mr. Chen has served a number of households, none of which were true nobles, but were wealthy merchants and bureaucrats. Mr. Chen has trained his mynah, Snitch, to 'speak'.[/spoiler]

DC 3: [spoiler]Fayre-Delun is recovered from stage-six blanchphage. Besides the evident melancholy, it also explains her relatively pigment-subdued skin and eyes. At this point, the condition won't worsen, but the remaining symptoms aren't likely to improve either. Mr. Chen's last worked for Antoine-Ru, who Hadric remembers served as a secretary for Chief-Magistrate Lian several decades ago. The blond, heavy-boned girl is Tatiana. Her mother disappeared ten days ago, her father was a Somnambulon mercenary who fought for the Sons of the Wolf and died during the Adumbral War. The black-haired boy is Gyo: he's one of the countless, starving guttersnipes of the Ebon Ward. He claims he served as a lookout for the Brass-Skulls but then became the target of Yellow Dragon reprisal. The bow-legged adolescent is Vieng. He was raised in a brothel in the Mooncalf Tangle, where he worked till Qiao-Fae gave him a way out.
Knowing the above info about Fayre-Delun, Tatiana, Gyo, and Vieng allows Hadric to haggle down the finder's fee to 15 crowns, but only for them.[/spoiler]

DC 4: [spoiler]Fayre-Delun was Symos's bodyguard and valet during his excursion to Dolmen. She was released after she protested his conversion to the Mourning Flock. Forced to find her way home on her own and without Mei-Vourne finances, she joined a band of traveling tomb-robbers. They met their demise in the Etiolation, save for Fayre-Delun and a shade witch who left the afflicted woman in a Skein hospital where she slowly 'recovered'. Mr. Chen has spent the past 20 years in the Painted House, Skein's main prison.
Knowing the above info allows Hadric to haggle down the finder's fee for Mr. Chen to 15 crowns.[/spoiler]

DC 5: [spoiler]Mr. Chen was sent to prison for murdering his wife and assaulting his employer (who was saved by another servant). For years, Mrs. Chen cuckolded him with his employer, Antoine-Ru. Mr. Chen discovered this by his mynah parroting his wife's orgasmic cries to the bureaucrat. Such a crime might have warranted a death sentence, but Mr. Chen's employer didn't want the publicity of an execution (due to the scandalous consequences for him) but also because he allegedly felt remorseful for his ill-treatment of his otherwise perfect servant. Chief-Magistrate Lian's son was responsible for the trial –who in addition to sentencing Mr. Chen to serve a year for each year he had been married, also proclaimed that he should have to keep the bird with him upon pain of castration.
Knowing this about Mr. Chen allows Hadric to haggle down the finder's fee to 5 crowns.[/spoiler]

DC 6: [spoiler]Due to sheer silver-tonguedness and haggling acumen, Hadric is able to reduce the finder's fee another 5 crowns for all the potential employees –on top of the above reductions (e.g., they let you hire Mr. Chen for free so long as you promise not to tell people they hire out ex-murderers).[/spoiler]
[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre takes in each spilled secret with interest, pondering how it may be twisted to her advantage. The torturer only offers his victim a stony stare, something between disappointment and contempt flickering in his eyes... he'd clearly wanted to employ the tools of his trade.

The magister finally cuts off Xedric.

"We have heard enough. There are other questions for you to answer."

"He needs encouragement," the torturer whispers. "I know his type. Think they're top o' th' world, then turn into whimperin' babes on the rack. But th' moment they think things 'er goin' their way, they get cocky again. Think they can bargain. Think they can lie..."

The torturer grabs Xedric's testicles with a gloved hand and squeezes them crushingly hard.

"I hate liars," he breathes, eyes brimming with loathing, "and I hate yer kind. But here on th' rack, who y' used to be don't matter. Here, yer nobody. Yer blood's th' same color and yer screams sound th' same as anyone else's."

"Maybe y' need to see how. Only way your kind learns is pain..."

The torturer draws a massive butcher knife from his rack of implements. Spattered in blood and rust, it is clearly ill-suited for quick, clean cuts. It will take repeated saws and hacks to sever anything.

He positions it over the base of Xedric's manhood and presses it against his crotch, letting him feel how dull the edge is.

The torturer grins cruelly. "Y' look th' type t' rather enjoy 'avin' that, don't y', m'lord? Prob'ly never thought t' appreciate it. Maybe this'll be a lesson..."

"Enough." The magister's icy voice cuts in. "He has cooperated with us thus far. If he ceases to, you may employ such measures at your discretion. But not until that time."

"M'lord, it's fer th' best," the torturer answers, eyes (and hands) never leaving Xedric. "Jus' let me put some real fear in 'im..."

"No," the magisters answers curtly, his tone final. He goes to pose a new round of questions to Xedric, voice calm and even. The torturer once more withdraws to a mask of stony silence... though the blade never leaves his prisoner's crotch.[/ic]

[ooc]Alisandre/Alphosine now ask Xedric a series of questions related to Mei-Vourne family business dealings, past scandals, assorted dirty secrets its members are hoarding, and who Xedric is allies/enemies with. It looks like House Sedaracs is simply trying to gain an edge over a rival house. Assuming Xedric confirms he works together with Symos and/or Patrois (which I already know), subsequent questions are aimed at discovering what locations they meet to discuss clandestine matters, how they stay in communication, the identities of people they hire to do their dirty work... basically, I'm fishing for anything that gives me a lead to proving the botched funeral was a setup (like the identities of protestors, location where someone might've overheard their plotting, whatever), while masking it beneath a smokescreen of information that I don't really need. Since said information concerns Mei-Vourne family business dealings, I probably already know the answers to much of it; this is also a test to see how honest Xedric is being.

Intimidation check: (http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/ooc]

[ooc]Seeing if A knows how daddy lost his digit, per AIM discussion...

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Xedric screams and whimpers in agony as Alisandre crushes his scrotum. He thrashes impotently when threatened with amputation, then shudders with desperate relief when his other guised sibling saves him. He chokes momentarily on his own bloody-spittle, then weakly lets it drool from his blenched lips. More than once, Alisandre has to check his pulse, or have Alphosine repeat a question. He falters and fades. Something must have retorn inside his ravage gut. Sweat once more prickles his naked skin. He becomes delirious –yet, in his pain-wracked state, he speaks the truth. He is too tired, too feeble to disassemble or connive. He spills his secrets without decency or restraint –just like the rivulets of red drool that slip from his corpulent jowl.

In the end, it is Alphosine that breaks first. Her head slumps suddenly, overwhelmed with maintaining the exhausting dweamor. The chamber ripples. Aetheric pigment begins to run like melted snow, revealing the true form of Belphia's crypt. Zeernebub leaps to its mistress' lap –no longer a lobster-clawed infant but a bug-faced feline. Alphosine moans –her voice once more her own: weak now, but womanly. She waves an apology to Alisandre, but says she is fine. So relieved, the outcast magistra turns back to her half-brother, ready to knock him out before he recognizes the collapsing reality as a farce. But she has no need –by the time she turns around, he is already unconscious. His breath is a fragile, shallow thing, like a moth's wing in winter. [/ic]

[ooc]He spills the beans. It's a big can, so I'll post stuff along the way. In the meantime, I'll let you respond to the physical reality and your next steps as discussed. For your discoveries, particularly those relevant to your goal of discrediting your brothers and regaining your title, you gain 4 XP, enough to gain a benefit of your choice as per Penumbra rules.[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric peruses the human wares on offer, variously poking and prodding at them. "Too tall!" he says of one.

"Tooooo fatsss!" Nibs says of another. Hadric sighs with mock exasperation.

"Well, at least tell me about your qualifications! Let's start with your greatest weakness."[/ic]

[ooc](http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4

Might - 10/13, Agility - 10[11]/14, Intellect - 7/9

And you already added my expertise? I don't have to?[/ooc]

[ooc]Correct, Hadric discovers everything from DC 4 down, and gains all the knowledge and cumulative benefits thereof. But he doesn't learn/gain DC 5 or 6 results -which for non experts would be DC 6 & 7.

So, based upon that haggling and line of inquires and their results, you can choose whoever you wish: the finder's fee for any of them is reduced to 15 crowns (or something of equivalent value). Of course, if you have the means, you can employ as many as you wish: the merchants certainly wouldn't mind the extra profit.[/ooc]  

[ic=Alisandre]In the moments that follow, Xedric's confessions echo and distill in Alisandre's mind.[/ic]

[ooc]By his own words, Xedric admits to his hand in Alisandre's banishment. He brazenly claims it was his plot, but she can read between his words and see the connections that elude him. They confirm her suspicions: Symos was certainly involved, and most likely the mastermind. What surprises her perhaps, however, is the depth of Xedric's motive...

Like most children, Alisandre's had grown up always seeing the Mei-Vourne family from her perspective. From birth –her birth- she was Caraumonde's scion, heir to the family's riches and promised inheritor of all its power and privilege. That had always been the truth that had ruled her world.

Yet, that truth had not always been true. Long before Alisandre was even a seed in Belphia's womb, Xedric was a man. He, first-born of Caraumonde, had been raised to believe he was the rightful heir to the family's riches and promised inheritor of all its power and privilege. It was a truth that had ruled his world.

When Caraumonde left to undertake his grand sojourn, Xedric -only seven days past his Grand Chaining and only two after his mother passed away delivering a still-born brother- had been appointed regent over his household's enterprises. He had been tutored and aided, naturally, but the transition of duties was difficult, abrupt. Yet, Xedric had managed. His studies at Vlerinn-Phoi had suffered. Several merchant-princes and nobles had tried to take advantage of his youth. He had been poisoned. Once he had been kidnapped –ironically by Lucilius Sederacs- and tortured out of pure sadistic whim before being set free. But throughout it all, unsure when, or if, his father would ever return, he kept his family's fortunes afloat –indeed, some enterprises even prospered.

Then, without warning, Caraumonde had returned. He did not thank or praise his son for his accomplishments –he simply snatched back the reigns of Mei-Vourne. He did not speak of his three-year absence, nor explain his sudden homecoming. He was aloof, cold, uncaring. With his father's return, Xedric was relegated to be naught but a child, cared for by a new governess and striped of all his hard-earned duties.  Within in the year, Caraumonde remarried. Alphosine was born shortly thereafter -and with her arrival, Xedric was no longer an only child. He was no longer heir.

But Alphosine was betrothed to Seviert within a few years, and the promised crown shifted back to Xedric. Whether by way of apology or boredom, Caraumonde ceded certain mercantile affairs to his first-born.  The extra time allowed Caraumonde to pursue his next bride -after Alphosine's mother died in a mining-accident of course.  Symos and Patrois came soon thereafter, and with their births, Xedric was shunted to the back of the successionary line. The boys' mother died soon-thereafter though, and just as suddenly, Xedric was heir. An entire year passed before Caraumonde married Belphia; nine months later, Alphosine was born: heir to the family's riches and promised inheritor of all its power and privilege. It was a truth that ruled her world –and destroyed Xedric's.

Though drugged, dying, and deluded by Alphosine's hex, Xedric had confessed, mere inches from Alisandre's face, of his hatred for the 'spoilt brat' who had a life all-too easy. No responsibilities, just privilege. She was protected, secure, and safe, able to indulge her flitting artistic whims while her older brothers –first and foremost Xedric- labored to keep the family's coffers flush.  She lived a charmed life –even when her mother died, Caraumonde went unmarried for more than a decade, only wedding Delepitore till Alisandre was disowned. When 'the brat' failed her Chaining Day, their father brushed it aside. She had done little better than he at college, despite her lack of any additional responsibilities. In his eyes, she was utterly unworthy of Mei-Vourne's crown –and even more unworthy to stand in his way after all he had done to earn it, again and again. Sometimes, as he had learned during his father's sojourn, a crime must be committed for justice to be done.  

Symos had always shared similar sentiments, Xedric related, especially after the shame of her first binding's failure was displaced to the shortly returned son. So Xedric confided in his brothers his yet-unpolished plot to do away with Alisandre. Patrois had allegedly pleaded to spare their sister. Symos proposed a compromise, one that involved his contacts with the political dissidents, the Inhumists, a group that protested the corporeal interment of Skein's dead, arguing that the dead should be burned and the cemetery's lands be converted for more profitable use. It was easy to supply the Inhumists the time, procession route, and guard details of the funeral Alisandre was perfunctorily overseeing –especially since Xedric had done all of laborious preparations. Then, when the dissidents succeeded in disrupting the ceremony and Alisandre was outcast, it was equally easy to provide the Watch with the location and identities of the Inhumists, once again, courtesy of Symos' connections.  With the Inhumists dead, their names were in the clear.

As Xedric answers inquiries about the family's finances and enterprises, Alisandre is frankly surprised by how much she doesn't know. Eventually, she stops probing those topics, as they give some merit to her sibling's aforementioned accusations.

But there are other confessions of note: he admits to poisoning Proserpine –and relates how he has been accomplishing it. He's been using the same trick used against him, back when he was first poisoned during Caraumonde's journey. He hasn't been poisoning the bottles –just the rim of her glasses.

There are other family indiscretions. Two concern the deaths of Caraumonde's wives.

First, the mother of Symos and Patrois –who Alisandre was always told died of a disease- had become infected with the Slow Plague. Xedric does not know how she was exposed to it, but the once-beautiful woman became a grosteque abomination. Caraumonde attempted to save her, her kept her locked away, paid ludicrously expensive physicians and chymists, but to no avail. In the end, her screamed pleas for death were answered by her husband. Xedric says it took the man several tries to stab all of her cancerous-duplicated hearts.

Second, Xedric claims that Belphia committed suicide. Most simply assume she was killed by Caraumonde, but Xedric says she took her own life, much to their father's dismay. Xedric does not know why she did it, though, but he is sure she died by her own hands.

Beyond maternal deaths, Xedric relates the cause of Caraumonde's severed ring-finger on his left-hand. It was part of his pact with Madam Fontanelle. She keeps the finger-bone as part of her skeletal make-up, alongside the milk-teeth of his children –all save Xedric's that is.

You also learn of a secret warehouse that Xedric owns under a pseudonym. It's filled with various riches and trade goods he smuggled and skimmed from the family's coffer: a nest-egg he developed after his birthright kept being stolen from him. It's in the Damask Ward, near the Southern Station for easy loading in case he had to flee. It's guarded though, but he passed out before he was able to relate its defenses. [/ooc]

[ic]Hadric reclines morosely on the curb outside Ratibor's Emporium, idly running a feather-comb through Nibs' sumptuous plumage. The demon purrs, its eyes half-closed. "I have become depressed, Nibs; just like that. Such tiresome and unhappy stories. Nobody seems to appreciate a happy ending anymore, not the way I do." he says. Nibs doesn't really seem to be listening. Hadric snaps his fingers, suddenly rocketing to his feet. "That's it! I'll just have to write my own story!" he proclaims loudly to the deserted street. "I'll be back in two shakes of a sphinx's tail, Nibs!" he calls over his shoulder, striding hurriedly across the road to the Petite Joug. Bursting through the door Hadric levels his finger straight at the blond girl. "You! We have a book to write!" he yells. "Well. Not literally," he reconsiders, taking in Tatiana's wide-eyed stare. Hadric scans the room. Passing over the proprietor with his gaze several times (and seemingly unable to hear the man's repeated queries) he shrugs and haphazardly dumps fifteen crowns onto the counter. Half-dragging the girl by the arm he rebursts out onto the street in a flash, Nibs excitedly slithering over.

"A new friend? What is its name?" the demon asks.

"Tantarella. No! Tatiana." Hadric answers, proceeding at a merry pace down the street back in the direction of the Tangerine Ward - and presumably eventually his home. "Now. I realize this must all be somewhat shocking," he confides. "But there's really nothing else for it. I was quite moved by your plight, miss - and let it never be said that I have left a lady in distress! - and so I must take it upon myself to see to your proper upbringing in order that this unfortunate city should be made more bearable. Nibs and I shall see to your education -"

"Bookssss!" Nibs exclaims.

"To your edification -"

"Bearing!" the demon cries.

"To your training." he continues, as Nibs grabs a knife from Hadric's bag with the end of its tail and waves it around. "And of course to your health and safety."

"Buttersss" the demon mumbles over a mouthful of half-melted butter apparently also produced from within the confines of Hadric's bag.

"Any questions?" the sheevra asks.[/ic]

[ic=Hadric]Confusion, awe, and fear initially overwhelm the dumb-struck girl. Her employers' manic ebullience, however, soon assuages her trepidation, if not perplexity.  

"Are you a demon-prince?" she asks Hadric with childhood wonder and the hint of lingering fear. She soon asks other questions, sometimes to the sheevra, other times to his erstwhile familiar. "Do you eat children?" "Do you eat candles –is that why you glow?" "Do you know where my mother is?" "Why is your demon not chained?" "Did you know my father, Kravec?" Each query is touched by a similar, if slowly diminishing, degree of ignorance, curiosity, and dubiety.

Together, the trio returns to the perfumed avenues of the Indigo Ward and Hadric's residence therein. Tatiana continues, if permitted, to ask about her new masters and responsibilities, interspersing her questions with answers of her own, particularly of her own upbringing and ancestry. Nibs happily converses between gulps of butter. He asks her irreverent koans, tests her fluency in Low Phlegethian, and repeatedly demands to know what she's making for dinner. By the time they reach the former bordello, Tatiana and Nibs are bosom companies, and the pair trounce off, Nibs slithering between her feet and tickling her cheeks with his plumage. Merrily, they raid the cellar and nigh-empty pantries. Nibs catches a six-footed rat, Tatiana prepares the pot. Hadric, meanwhile, is tired, especially as he walks his domicile's dusty corridors and smells the soporific aroma of his bedroom.[/ic]

[ooc]Hadric learns a few things about the girl on the ride home. Some are unsurprising: no, she does not speak the smoke-ring speech of the se'irim's paraphysical yeomanry. Others are. Namely, Hadric is somewhat shocked by her age: she is just 7. To Hadric's admittedly untrained eye, she appears perhaps 10, but her height and stocky build make her seem much older than most rail-thin, malnourished urchins of the Ebon Ward.

Tatiana, or Tatia as her parents called her, is the daughter of Virdal, a freelance machinist and Kravec Chemoley. the third son of Ludovic Chemoley, a landless noble from Old Gromlech in the Northern Baronies. According to Tatia's report, Virdal was an apprentice-mechanic in the Palace of Chimes, with aspirations to become one of the vestal-machinists that tend the Sortilege Engine. Kravec, however, wooed her, and doing so dashed her dreams of joining the virginal order. As allegedly related by her mother, Kravec's father was a famous painter, known for his seditionist-slanted paintings of the Northern Baronies and the Lords and Ladies Revenant. During the Northern Uprising, Kravec and his eldest brother Feodor fought against the zehrers' forces. Feodor died on the field of battle, blown apart by a necromechanoid. Ludovic was assassinated by a Whisper. Ludovic, Galkin's middle son, bowed the knee to Somnambulon. Outraged by his brother's capitulation, Kravec joined the Sons of the Wolf. Shortly before the Adumbral War, Kravec and a small contingent of the Sons were hired by Skein to perform certain recon missions on the defenses of Crepuscle's tributary settlements. In between these missions is when Kravec met and wooed Virdal. Tatia doesn't remember Kravec, save for a daguerreotype print of her parents that graced their family's mantelplace in Ravel Row. Tatia explains that her father died during the last battle of the War, where Kravec's grenadiers where slaughtered by the Dead Men after the Son's corsair reinforcements failed to arrive. Virdal was left to care and provide for Tatia on her own, and poverty soon forced them to move to the Ebon Ward, where Virdal began working on the sewers' pump-motors. Exposure to such disease-ridden environs eventually left Virdal ill. She had been going to the apothecaries of the 'Salvers for treatment. Ten nights ago, Tatia started to show symptoms of the sickness, and Virdal raced to the 'Salvers for more medicine. She never returned. Days later, the still-sick and starving Tatia started wandering the streets to look for her mother. Qiao-Fae found her, nursed her back to health. And thus you found her at the Petite Joug.

Tatia has bone-pale skin, blue eyes, wheat-hued hair, and the heavy-frame of her father's ancestry. She has the deep-slanted epicanthus of her Skeinite mother, though. She bears no Somnambulon accent, but speaks Hellspeak with a middle-class dialect. She knows her letters and can read. A little. Her math skills are much better. Like her mother, who let her tinker with tools and scraps, Tatia has an interest in mechanical things, although it's a rather inchoate affinity. She says she knows how to cook and tidy a place, as that was her job at home. However, upon further reflection, Hadric has reason to be dubious. Not only is the girl quite young, but the standards of Ebon Ward cooking and cleaning are quite, quite distinct from those of Skein's nobility –nobility he needs to impress if Ulle-Shi's counsel is correct.[/ooc]

[ic]"Nibs! Tatiana!" Hadric calls sleepily down the hall. "I'm taking a nap. I shall wake at dusk to commence the hunt, as we find ourselves in imminent need of funds." he continues - yawning - as he slowly curls himself up in bed, lulled by softness and warmth. "I'll get groceries..." he half-whispers, surrendering to the weighty grasp of sleep.[/ic]

[ooc]Daily third recovery roll: (http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6+1 : 6 + 1, total 7

Pools once edited stand at:  Might - 13/13, Agility - 12[11]/14, Intellect - 9/9[/ooc]

Initiative roll, spending Grit:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

[ic]Xavier curses as he struggles with the rapidly escalating disaster at his hands. His tongue is stilled when his attention is drawn to the loathsome threat suddendly emerging from the darkness. Confronted by this abominable mechanoid, the assassin decides on his course of action in a split second. There's not enough time to do anything about Maryse-Liang and the press, he realizes. Immediately determined to abandon the former to her doubtlessly grisly fate, Xavier darts forth to try and escape from the room and grab the almost finished paper from the malfunctioning printer on his way.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility roll, spending Grit:
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/ooc]

[ooc]
Stat pools:
Might 10/10 (0), Agility 12/14 (1), Intellect 8/12 (0)
[/ooc]

[ic=Xavier]With one fluid -if treacherous- tumble, Xavier snatches the still-wet pamphlet and rolls below and away from the leaping monstrosity. He does not look back as he flees the catacombs. He does not see what befalls Maryse-Liang or the press. The sounds, though, he hears. They will surely haunt his nightmares to come.

The echoes chase him up the stairways, through the floors, and around the tortuous corridors of the House. The reverberations and metallic shrieks -or are they screams- hound him. Eventually, though, he outpaces the horripilating cacophony.

In time, he is able to collect his thoughts. His breath assumes its typical placid rhythm. Looking down, he inspects the pamphlet still clutched in his no-longer shaking hand. Finished save for a last few lines, its bottom edge is smeared and rumpled from the stained rollers and rough retrieval. Still, it's a convincing counterfeit, so long as one doesn't inspect its end. He and Maryse-Liang -the unbidden image of the arachnoid horror implanting eggs into her seizuring, cog-locked body drifts before his prosthetic eye- successfully added into the headline article his selected pseudonym and prognosticated site of the lady's lace explosion.

The Soldiers of Skin await their new commander and incendiary orders.[/ic]

[ooc]Let me know, either IC or OOC, what the printed persona and site are, but you otherwise free to proceed with your ruse. Depending on the persona, you may need to roll a disguise check. A deception check, however, is definitely necessary. Remember, you have mastery in the former and expertise in the latter -and the pamphlet grants you a 1-step benefaction (would've granted more, but its unfinished, light-ink nature reduces it, and without it, you'd suffer a huge hindrance). Don't roll the 1. :)

Also, thanks for posting your current Pools.[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]
Hadric awakens from his somatic day-dream. He sinks through a delightful arboreal space, flooded with peridot sunlight, suspended between an unfathomably distant, yawning ocean and a sky of heart-lifting beryl. An infinity of amaranthine-leaved arbors surrounds him. Lemurs with whisper-studded masks cavort nearby. One has a bushy serpent for its tail, with the conjoined pair chasing each other between the spiderweb of branches. Their laughter freezes in the warm air, crystallizing into delicate, succulent sounds. The tittering-crystals plummet to the frothing abyss. Ignoring the giggling precipitation, another lemur, this one dark-haired, silently wretches atop a knotted trunk. Each regurgitation causes its belly to swell. Another, meanwhile, brachiates between the branches, its legs plucking a salacious melody on a voluptuous viola. Other lemurs flit further from Hadric's gaze. They pick colorless berries from the cinnabar leaflets. They sing to the fruit, causing them to crack open, revealing grey-mewling worms that instantly combust into hoary flames. The lemurs sip the miniature conflagrations with cries of ecstacy, choking back tears before serenading another floral ovary. Hadric realizes he is famished.[/ic]

[ooc]Welcome to the other side of Hadric's Looking-Glass. You have your Intellect pool. Certain actions will sap or strengthen it, as well as other possibilities. Since we're mucking in Hadric's subsconscious, feel free to take whatever narrative liberties strike your fancy. However, beware: the Aether is not without its danger –and though sheevra are skilled oneiromancers, the lucidity of their dreams make them vulnerable to certain menaces of the dreamlands.[/ooc]

[ic=Decarabia: Flight of the Butterfly]
The gibbous moon shats its bony light across the Sepia Ward. It exposes the naked industry of the dyer's district, revealing its stark functionality compared to the chitinous opulence across the river. Brick warehouses slouch against factories crowned by nests of belching smokestacks; cranes and scaffolds sprawl about towers not of gilded carapace but iron girders. Between the maze of locked storehouses and night-forlorn sweatshops, Watchmen patrol the gaslamp-lit streets with readied spear-swords and wheellock pistols. The cobblestone echoes with their hobnailed steps, but the district's streets are otherwise empty.

Decarabia, however, does not traverse such lowly roads –at least not tonight. She stands above their gaze, outside the muddy illumination that bathes the streets and storehouse walls.  Atop the factory roofs, swaying gantries, and bat-covered gablets, the shade stalks her prey.

The Midnight Papillion.

A black-market art-dealer reputed to hold nocturnal auctions of taboo and illicit artistry, the Midnight Papillion is a hard man to find. After a week of shaking down shady curio-dealers and avant-garde artists, Decaraba was finally able to get the name of the Papillion's current assistant, a tattoo-faced courier by the name of Jun-Moise. He put up quite the fight when Decarabia confronted him in his Damask Ward flat. Yet, after a few broken bones, pistol-whips, and a cocked carbine to his head, the courier traded his boss's secrets for his life. Nicodemius, he said, was the Papillion's name. Likely not his real one, but the current one at least. He claimed he didn't know for sure where Nicodemius stayed, since his boss always contacted him via penned letters when they needed to arrange a meeting. However, Jun-Moise –feeling helpful after Decarabia didn't blow his brains out- shared his suspicion that Nicodemius was staying in the Sepia Ward, atop a factory that processes cuttlefish ink. Has a certain smell, he explained, one that marked his letters as well as his clothes. It was the best –and now only- lead Decarabia had. And her employer wanted results.

Madame Fontanelle, as usual, had contracted Decarabia for a job. This time, however, it was strictly for her own reasons, rather than Mei-Vourne's more oblique interests. Another bricoleur had set up shop in Skein. This one, the governess related with milk-teeth-clacking ire, had not only failed to present itself to her, but had allegedly started producing flesh sculptures. Human flesh. This could not be tolerated, she proclaimed. It clearly violated the law and could bring retribution against all grave-spawn if discovered. It also transgressed the bricoleur's purity of bone-artistry. Decarabia was not certain which crime offended the governess more. Either way, she had contracted the shade to track down the bricoleur and see that justice was done. One way or another.

Her initial lead was only an ornately framed ambrotype. The velvet-backed glass depicted a    starfish-shaped assembly of flensed fingers and male genitalia spliced to a black-iron cog. Madame Fontanelle had acquired the grisly print from a contact who claimed she purchased it from the Midnight Papillion.

Now, a week later, Decarabia's all-too elusive quarry was near.

With spasmodic celerity, she makes her way across the Sepia Ward's skyline like a fearsome marionette. Her black eyes drink in the night. The darkness is her ally. With a final, preternatural leap, she vaults from a cooling smokestack to land atop the cuttlefish factory. A startled gull bursts into the air as she deftly lands. The factory is otherwise still. She takes in her surroundings. Beside a dormant smokestack and several ventilation pipes, the flat roof is dominated by a massive crane that creaks in the riparian breeze. At its base, a brick-walled pilothouse sits. A suitable safehouse.

Hands hovering near her firearms, Decarabia stealthily creeps towards the structure. Flitting between the cover of the ventilation pipes, she realizes that Jun-Moise spoke truthfully: there is a certain smell. An unpleasant one.

She sprints the last stretch. She kicks down the rusty door and draws Marchoisas in one frenetic, act of violence.

But the pilothouse is empty. There are signs, however, that it was not always so. A kettle and cup of lethe-tea sit on a rickety table beside a half-written letter. The tea is warm. The ink is wet.

He must have heard her approach, or perhaps a hex alerted him. Either way, she considers, he must be close. Stepping out of the pilothouse, she looks around. She spots him. The Midnight Papillion is a short man, mask-less, amply-ringed, dressed in a paisley frock-coat, white hose, and buckled shoes. He half-runs, half-climbs the crane's creaking trestle. Looking back, he sees he's been spotted. He gives a wind-muffled yelp of fear, then hastens his ascent.

The chase is on![/ic]

[ooc]No need to roll Initiative, as both of you are aware of each other and active. If you try and follow him up the trestle, roll a climb check (Might based: DC 3 for you) or jump check (Agility based: DC 2 for you). If you do the latter, you will also need to make a balance check (Agility based: DC 3 for you). While the latter option requires 2 rolls, it is definitely the fastest, especially given your expertise in running, and will cover ground more quickly.[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric grins at the antics of the lemurs, the length of his smile quickly stretching to the distant horizon. The lemurs freeze in their tracks and their eyes widen with fright, alarmed at the geographic extent of the intruder's delight. Hadric quickly purses his lips, removing the unwelcome blight. "Pardon me! I'll try to keep it under control," he calls. Seemingly satisfied, the lemurs return to their business. Realizing the extent of his hunger, Hadric flips onto his head and humms a lullaby his mother sang to him as a babe .

With a loud pop an enormous toad wearing a cream knit shawl materializes in the canopy of a nearby tree "Service, sir?" the toad inquires.

"Ah! Boilegard. Of course! What's on the menu today?" Hadric asks. With a mighty leap Boilegard sails from the treetop to land at Hadric's side, laying out a crisp white tablecloth in front of him.

"To start, a steaming bowl of baby's breath topped with a scoop of only the most insubstantial mountain air, imported directly from Red Red Rimigar. Our main is a delightful - " cries of horror emanate from a thousand lemur throats at the mention of delight, the cacophony toppling several nearby trees. A look of eminent consternation affixes itself to Boilegard's slimy face. Hadric gestures at at him bizarrely with his eyebrows. "Excuse me," Boilegard continues "That is to say an enchanting - " the howling barrage ceases instantly "cut of fat, trimmed from the cloying first efforts of would-be authors everywhere. For dessert, a piece of half-eaten toast."

"It sounds delicious," Hadric says.

"I assure you sir, it is. As your pedigree is that of second scion of the Seventy-Third Strand, the Bent Ladle of the Ranarid Sous is contractually obligated to provide you with delicious fare, prompt delivery, and morose and presumptuous service." Boilegard says as he lays out the meal, silver trays deposited neatly atop the tablecloth from his stretching tongue. "Unfortunately as we are in the company of several individuals of an arboreal persuasion, I regret to say that refreshments are not included today, sir. In fact, they are expressly forbidden within a radius extending seven-thousand sighs from our current location," the toad finishes, the promised dishes arrayed before them. Hadric frowns at Boilegard's pronouncement and begins to sample the food.

"Remarkably insubstantial!" he declares of the baby's breath. "And this fat is enchantingly moist, cloyingly trite, and thoroughly underwhelming!"

"And the toast, sir?" Boilegard inquires. Hadric takes the slice between his teeth and crunches enthusiastically.

"It's a bit dry," he says of it. Boilegard sniffs derisively.

"Sir's palate is, as yet, woefully unsophisticated. Despite my long years of work." the toad complains. Hadric stares at the tablecloth sheepishly, contractually obligated embarrassment writ plain across his face. Boilegard harumphs.

"I am quite thirsty." Hadric says, his meal finished. Boilegard simply shrugs as the sun's light fades to a dull off-emerald, the lemurs manically scrambling about in search of shelter beneath the canopy. "I suppose I'll have to find myself a drink."[/ic]

[ooc]I think Hadric should have an arch-rival in the Aether named Snibs, who is obviously just Nibs wearing a moustache >_>[/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]Hadric sinks further down the arboreal infinitude, as his tongue becomes heavy with the salty spray of benthic depths. To one side, he spots a patch of darkness between the trees: not an absence of light, but an umbral density framed by brazen trunks, wet and textured. The sound of chipping tea-pots peaks out from behind the brass-barked frames. The sound smiles, coquettishly of course. To the other side, musical instruments devour one another with reckless abandon. A cello swallows a sea of minnow-small piccolos only to be promptly gobbled up by a ravenous concertina, which in turn is sucked down the piped gullet of a harmonium. Boilegard looks down disapprovingly at the scene, his slimy countenance drawn inward by a pair of ludicrously large pince-nez. They do not fit well.

The lemurs are lost. Their flame-fruits now tiny stars in the porphyry eaves.

Hadric's tongue continues to fatten. It bursts from his mouth, rolling out like an impossibly long anchor. It bristles with sorrowful barnacles. They weigh him down. He must drink! To slough them off, to slake his thirst![/ic]

[ooc]Make an Intellect defense roll, and please continue by all means.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena narrows her eyes.

"I can find Tandy myself, if need be. But petty politics and scandals will not deter me." She uncrosses her arms. "I have connections you lack. I can go places you cannot, do things that Skein's laws forbid you. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement. You tell me Tandy's whereabouts - and in exchange I can help you. Perhaps track down some of these escaped dissidents. I have no sympathy with their causes."[/ic]

[ic]His tongue is heavy. There is little time! Salt rises in the Ae-Tringe, emanating in waves from a clear and cool heart. Hadric knows he must get below the brine belt, lest thirst claim his dream. And so he dives, accelerating rapidly. The scenery fades to a horizon point behind him. A cloud-panther spies his descent, and its own hunger is piqued. It chases after him, its great bushy beard fluttering behind it. The panther tries to gore him with its stare, but Hadric's mien is too fierce, and the gaze glances off. There, below! The crisp watery core. He can almost reach it![/ic]

[ooc]Intellect Defense: (http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3

Hadric does have expertise in intellect defense vs. witchcraft produced effects, but I'm not sure if that applies here. Regardless, Hadric will now spend 2 points of intellect to add one point of grit, reducing his intellect pool to 7/9.[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Red Mei drums her fingers on the tin-plated tabletop like a pale, five-limbed spider. She scoffs, shaking her head, "Petty? You're hunting for a disowned drug addict in exchange for what, a few chit to rub between your fingers?  You don't get it, do you? You act like you're free of all this gleetstorm –you aren't. Come next Jubilee, Shenn's pretty face won't be gracing this wall. New bosses. New rules. Some of those would-be bosses don't like our kind. Not one bit. You –we, we aren't human in their eyes, not really. So don't play dumb like all of this Hellsdamned cluster-gleet doesn't concern you."

She sits back and breathes a heavy sigh. "Did you ever consider that maybe I don't want these dissidents found? That maybe you shouldn't either?"

She shakes her head again, red wig shifting on her sweaty brow. She matches Catena's incarnadine gaze with her own. She laughs:

"That face. Such an ugly piece of marble. Just as cold."

She pulls out a file, copies an address down, and slides it across the table.

"Already gave you her name, but that's Tandy's address, or more properly, the address of her pimp: Sacheverell, or Dr. Sach as he prefers to be called. She's gone to ground, so I figure she's holed up in his rat-nest. The doctor's a right nasty piece of work. He's got ties to the Orchid-Eaters. People who cross him, his girls included, end up sampling the syndicates' latest batches. Fancies himself a scientist, shackling his subjects and chronicling their symptoms. Give my regards."

"Now-," she says leaning forward, her finger still pressed firmly on the note, "-in exchange for those two pieces of information, I expect two favors in return. First, should you discover Xalmas' fate, you tell me first. As for the second favor, let's just say you owe me one. Like old times."[/ic]

[ooc]The address is to a flophouse, above the Impregnated Stallion, in the Indigo Ward.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre listens patiently to Xedric's lengthy confessions, noting all with interest, some with triumph, and others with bafflement.

Suicide? Mother, what on earth...?

She brims with anger when her half-brother justifies ruining her life... at least, at first. As she looks down upon his delirious, dying, broken form, she can't help but wonder. The girl she used to be might've been able to stomach such a grisly sight, but she certainly would've lacked the strength to orchestrate it. What else wouldn't she have been able to do? Would she, in fact, have been a poor heir to the Mei-Vourne legacy?

Perhaps she did owe her former position to birth and not merit. But she had a chance to earn it through the latter now. She knew less of the family's business workings than she believed, but she could learn. She could manage them better than Xedric had--she was, after all, more intelligent (at least in her own mind) than he was. And in an odd way, she would owe it all to him.

After confirming from Alphosine that she is not unduly wearied from maintaining the glammer, Alisandre inspects Xedric's comatose form and calls on what medical knowledge she can to save his life, then has her reanimated servant load the coffin into Alphosine's carriage. After changing vehicles into something less identifiable midway through the city, she deposits Xedric's coffin outside the doors to the Mei-Vourne family estate.

You called for my death, left me charred, broken, and stripped of everything, yet I have preserved your life twice this evening, she thinks as the carriage rattles us off.

Consider us still quite uneven.[/ic]

[ooc]Intellect check to save Xedric's life. Spending 1 grit.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6+1 : 2 + 1, total 3

Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 8/17 (1)

After this, Alisandre is going to lie low back in mom's crypt for a while. She'll retrieve her things from Alphosine (though keep the maid disguise, which could come in handy again), spend some time on the puzzle box, chatting with mom's maybe-spirit-maybe-her-own-mind, and recuperating her depleted pools.[/ooc]

[ooc]Takin' a reroll if that failed. I want him around!

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 2 + 1, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Hadric]The cloud-panther sighs in hungered despair.

Hadric sinks deeper.

The sea yawns wide.

Leviathans stir in the deep. Their tendrils reach out from psyche-crushing abysses. With idiotic puissance, they caress bubbles of glass that drift amid currents of aether-brine. One globe ephemerally slides from a capreolate grasp. It rises to the roiling surface. It shatters as it touches the air, cataclysmically spraying iridescent shards that rise and fall in moronic rhythms. Reflections dance off the gnashing surf. They dance for Hadric. Their movements, familiar, piercing.

His mother's smile. The song of mood-lances. His father's shadow. The susurrus of half-sentient towers.  

They blend together, dancing above the heaving waves of powdery crystal. They writhe, crash, and grind up against one another, a lunatic waltz of grief and loss.

Hadric nearly dives into their soul-flaying embrace, drawn like prey to a mesmerizing symphony of xsurs. But his consciousness is buoyed, blown upwards by a sudden gust of tomorrows.

The misty squall swaddles him in its moist arms. For a moment, he loses himself, no longer anchored by his thirst or hypnotic dive. Slowly, he finds himself.

He is clutching slick rigging. Tendrils of uvid cloud-clocks swirl into his face. He is on a galleon decorated in pinks and reds. Not wood painted such hues, but actual planks of color. The pastels bend lightly in the wind. The darker shades creak slowly. The galleon's bow is thickly crusted with grotesque sea-monsters and slant-eyed mermaids with seven tongues and sixteen teats. Another dreamer stalks the decks and orders about the crew. The eye-shut captain wears a richly brocaded sherwani and a living peacock for a hat. The crew are tatterdemalion lumps of shifting books, folios, and dusty scrolls. Strange birds swoop around the hull, scaled iridescent like fish, with wings made of translucent ribbons. Caught in the rigging, Hadric flies –a pure, mad joy flashing through his yesterdays.[/ic]

[ooc]Yes, that bonus counts. You regain 2 Intellect.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena nods grimly.

"Your assistance is appreciated; your terms, acceptable."

She reaches for the address. At this time of night the Indigo Ward will doubtless be crawling with lowlives and rogues; Catena's lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. Interacting with Red Mei has given her the urge to crack some skulls.[/ic]

[ooc]Ugh, two 2s. One more XP, one last go. We've come too far for you to give up on me now, X!

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 1 + 1, total 2[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Red Mei grunts her goodbye. A Watchman escorts Catena outside the blockhouse. The Tangle remains just as she left it: torpid, ugly, and poor.

***

Evening falls upon the Indigo Ward as Catena tracks down Sach's address. She finds the Impregnated Stallion at the end of a greasy cul-de-sac. The tar-smeared tavern and its upper-story whorehouse sit between a defunct shipwright's office and a hostel for itinerant boatmen. Streetwalkers of both sexes flaunt their wares to fresh-paid stevedores and blue-balled sailors. A knot of tattooed ruffians watches both groups with tepid vigilance.

The six thugs, who tote brick-filled hose and nail-studded clubs, loiter under the Stallion's sign: a tin seahorse lit by rarified gas tubes, tinted with blue phosphor. They eye Catena suspiciously as she approaches the tavern's pitch-slathered door. One goes so far as to rise from his succubus-carved stool, but another waves him off. She's allowed to pass without further incident.

Inside, the Stallion is all wood: walls, chairs, tables, the bar itself a long dark block of liquor-stained teak. Sickly, black-berried vines crawl across the establishment, bursting between driftwood planks and decaying riverwood. A seedy, psychotropic fog fills the air, fueled by a mob of scrimshaw pipes, asherat-spliced cigarettes, and sour-smelling stogies. The place is crowded, but subdued. Whores rub shoulders, and more, with graftpunk seaman. Drug-peddlers and smugglers hash out deals under the dim glow of floating tea-lights. An ink-skinned, blood-eyed corsair dices with a silk-robed bureaucrat and prostitute-lapped roustabout. The former sips from a pungent hookah, while the latter two quibble over proposed tariff legislation. Beside the bar, the skeleton of a geaborg rots. Beer-stained notes and floral cuttings are tucked between its yellowing bones and verdigris-smeared cogs. Seeing Catena enter, the barkeep –a slant-eyed woman with a gasmask- nods. She waves to a rack of unlabeled liquors, cheap humidors, snuffboxes, cracked waterpipes, and a set of painted woodcuts displaying varyingly exotic acts of prostitution.  She then inquires, her voice distorted by her mask's bifurcated respirators: "What'll be yer poison tonight?"[/ic]

[ooc]Due to your Defenses, you don't need to make a save vs the drug-fog. You don't see Tandy (or another ghul streetwalker). There are several exits: a larger stairwell, a small one, a swing-door that likely leads to the kitchen, and another to an unknown destination.

Admittedly, I made some assumptions about Catena's approach. If you wanted instead to try a more stealthy approach (try and break in a back door, climb up to the roof, etc.), go ahead and proceed and I'll edit my post accordingly.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alphosine watches Xedric's operation in a daze. She wipes the blood from her nose, unaware or unconcerned how it stains her mousquetaire gloves a bright red. Idly, she strokes Zeernebub's silken coat. "I didn't know," she says weakly, "I never knew..."

Meanwhile, Alisandre fights to save her brother's life. Again. She tries to conjure old lessons from Vlerinn-Poi, her classes in chirurgery, vivisection, and physiology. They come back to her, slowly, and she makes several mistakes along the way. Her fingers and mind both feel like lead, fatigued by all their exertion. Xedric's confessions distract her. She lacks the proper tools. He needs blood. There is a messy transfusion that involves repurposed embalming tubes. More than once, she cuts open her servitors to examine what remains of their necrotic innards. The procedure is far from pretty or sure of success.

Eventually, Alisandre steps back and washes her hands of his, and her own, blood. She regards her 'patient'. New stitches, raw and ragged, cross his old. Blenched and naked, he lies on death's doorstep. Yet, he is no longer slipping beyond its threshold. His condition, though, remains all-too fragile. One rough jostle or jolt, and his insides might come undone. Even without such trauma, he still might not survive the night.

Alphosine is quiet on the way back.  She lets Zeernebub manage the reigns with its sharp-claws. She drifts in and out of consciousness. As Alisandre handles the coffin's transfer to a covered wagonette, her older sibling rouses long enough to bid farewell. She hands Alisandre her belongings, then snaps off a few pearls from a glove. "For the driver... and beyond." She gently pats Alisandre's arm, her eyes pained despite the perpetual smile upon her lips. "Be safe, dearest." Zeernebub gurgles a parting with its sponge-like proboscis, then flicks the reigns. Alphosine's carriage disappears into the night.

Alisandre and her frocked servitor are left to make the 'delivery'. The wagonette's driver, a cloaked finger with grey skin and yellowed nails, remains utterly silent during their sojourn. As they approach Mei-Vourne's manse in the Viridian Ward, bitter-sweet memories assault Alisandre. Xedric's words echo in her ears. So engrossed, she nearly misses an unexpected turn in the wagonette's path. "A minor detour, m'lady," he explains, with no elaboration forthcoming. They pass down an alley. A stagecoach follows them. Further down the road, another stagecoach, pitch-black in the dark, blocks off the passage. One of its doors opens. The wagonette halts a few paces from it. The second stagecoach stops; guards in Mei-Vourne livery step out and approach the coffin. "We wi' 'ake 'is, 'ow," A woman says with mangled pronunciation. It is the toothless nanny from earlier today. "Your ride awai's," she says pointing to the open door of the other coach.[/ic]

[ooc]You have 3 freshwater pearls from the glove.[/ooc]  

[ic]"You flee only towards ruination!" Decarabia roared after her fleeing quarry. Precarious heights were certainly not her strongest suit, but she had no desire to spend another week twisting the joints of every stool pigeon in the Damask Ward until she found what new hole the Midnight Papillion has slithered down, so she was of a risk-taking mindset tonight. With a running start, she tightens her sinews and launches herself at the trestle.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility check to leap the trestle.
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Agility check to maintain her balance. Spending 1 Grit to lower the difficulty of the roll.
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 12/12 (1), Agility 15/16 (1), Intellect 10/10 (0)[/ooc]

[ic=Decarabia]Nicodemius does not reply -he is too busy scrambling for his life.

Meanwhile, Decarabia flawlessly vaults over the pilothouse, her host's muscles twitching with the subdermal fluid of her true form. Her second leap propels her far out onto the crane's trestle. It rocks violently with her landing. Her left foot slips on a greased joint. She falls between a cat's cradle of rusted beams, banging herself between girders. Frantically, she catches herself. Hard. The impact knocks the stale wind from her embalmed lungs. Her legs dangle freely in the night air.

Nicodemius fares only slightly better. He too is jostled by the now-swaying crane and nearly pitched off its precarious edge. He steadies himself though, and slowly resumes his escape, a little less brazen, a little more blenched in countenance.  

The jostle and groan of the crane, however, do not go unnoticed by the gendarme below. A Watchmen shouts to his compatriot and points to the swaying crane. His peer gazes at the moonlit outlines of Decarabia and Nicodemius. "Halt," he shouts, then draws his pistol. The other blows a metallic-whistle. Its keen cuts the night air.

In reply, distant shouting can be heard. The hard fall of boots on cobblestone. The rumble of something... larger.[/ic]

[ooc]Oh, nat 1.

As before, you can roll a climb or a jump & acrobatics. The DC for the climb and acrobatics have both increased by 1. You can reduce your speed and gain a +1 benefaction to your roll(s).[/ooc]  

[ic]Failure is the reward of impatience, was the mantra the shade repeated over and over in her head as she hung precariously from the iron skeleton of the crane. That he had been both cause and witness to such an embarrassing display of spastic clumsiness was but one more reason Nicodemus would suffer when she finally got her hands on him, but there was no need to rush his fate. He could run, yes, he could run as far as he wanted, but he could not run forever. He would have to sleep, to eat. Decarabia suffered no such deficiencies. And if his escape truly seemed imminent, she could always just shoot him.

She shouted after her fleeing quarry as she found her footing amidst the rusted, oil-slicked beams of the trestle, this time making sure that he was secure before she launched herself off. Even as she did so, her mind was preoccupied by the sudden appearance of the Skein gendarmerie. It had not factored into her plans for the evening, and she was not yet sure how she would handle this new complication. They were measuring their own caskets if they tried to detain her, but she also could not allow herself to get entangled in extraneous violence tonight. For his own sake, she hoped the night watchman did not pull that trigger...[/ic]

[ooc]Decarabia reduces her speed to gain the benefaction to her rolls.

Agility check to leap the trestle.
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Agility check to maintain her balance. Spending another 1 Grit to further lower the difficulty of the roll.
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 12/12 (1), Agility 14/16 (1), Intellect 10/10 (0)[/ooc]

[ic]"Nor did I, Alphosine," Alisandre answers slowly, "nor did I. Come what may of Xedric's fate, we have learned much from this evening's events."

She pauses after stepping back from the man's ravaged form, surveying the results of her handiwork. "Do you believe that I..."

She trails off, shaking her head. "Never mind. A conversation for less... strenuous times."

The ride to the Viridian Ward passes in a blur. With both sisters fatigued, their brother's life hanging in the balance, and after everything he has confessed, there simply seems little to say.

Alisandre returns her sibling's gesture, her own eyes weary but grateful. "Thank you, Alphosine. For these and your earlier efforts. Without them, I would know far less of our brothers' plans than I now do--and as ever, I will remember."

She disembarks the wagon at the sight of the detour, mutely surveying the guards. I had hoped for a less public homecoming.

So, would father see her, call her to account for her actions? One of her brothers in his stead? Or would she be denied even the dignity of such an audience, outcast that she now was? Not so toothless now, I see, wryly crosses her mind at the nanny's words.

Well, death and pain came for all. Resistance would only bring more of both.

"So be it."

She boards the indicated carriage with neither haste nor slowness, calmly prepared to accept her fate.[/ic]

[ic=Decarabia]The Watchman fires. His shot smashes into the crane's metallic guts. Sparks fly as the bullet ricochets wildly. A cable snaps, and begins to plummet in a wide arc.

Already mid-leap, Decarabia alters her trajectory and dives down after the swinging cable. With nigh-inhuman skill, she latches onto the snapped pulley-line and lets its momentum –as well as her own- carry her below Nicodemius and the second Watchman's bullet-fire. As the cable reaches the end of its arc, she flings her body upward, twisting mid-flip to land sure-footedly atop the crane.

As she stands, her cloak swirls about her ankles.  The embroidery performs a mad danse macabre. She repositions her footing. Her steel-soled sandals lock down on the swaying girders like vises. Her hand drifts to Marchosias' damascened steel, revealing her scrimshaw prayer-beads.  Now steeped in starlit, they begin a hackle-raising liturgy in Corpserattle.

Nicodemius stumbles, shocked by the sudden obstruction of his escape route –and the all-too near menace of the shade. He tries to backpedal, but he trips and falls hard on the trestle. One of his shoes flies from his foot and falls to the street below. White-knuckled, he clutches a beam and tries to regain his balance.

He is a small man, Decarabia realizes. No, not a man, but a woman. Her goatee is now revealed as a fake, its adhesive painfully torn during her stumble. Her breasts have been crushed with a tight corset.

Lethe-tea stains her breath. Her paisley frockcoat is smeared with grease and rust. Tattoos the shade of crushed violets and belladonna cover her neck and ungloved hands. Her red eyes flit frantically. She has the wild look of a cornered animal.

She stares up into Decarabia's leering mempo and lightless eyes, then looks down at the distant cobblestone below, as if contemplating which might be more merciful.

Below, the Watchmen reload their wheellock pistols. The sound of reinforcements grow louder. Closer.

So trapped, the Midnight Papillion snarls a hex at the imposing shade. In reply, her tattoos violently rip from her skin.  Their ink rapidly pools and surges into the air. It forms a moth-like apparition of flowing mordant. Atramentous proboscises, many-jointed limbs, and glistening-wet wings begin to unfurl in fractal, mesmerizing patterns. Hungrily, it reaches for Decarabia.[/ic]

[ooc]And now 2 minor benefits back to back! The dice gods giveth and taketh.

So, the ink-moth is between you and the illicit art-dealer. She is prone. You don't need to make a balance check this round.  You do need to make an Intellect defense -though do to your master, the DC is only 2. So, basically don't roll the 1. If you succeed, go ahead and act. Behind you, the crane's remaining cables drop down with a large hook, not more than 15 feet from a docked tug. Otherwise, the ground is 40 feet below you.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The stagecoach door closes. Darkness fills the curtain-drawn interior. So blinded, Alisandre fumbles for moment, then finds a plush-cushioned bench and sits.  

Something rattles in the darkness. Hard and delicate. Looming and unseen.

There is a gasp, like the sudden inflation of leathery bellows. Then, a raspy breeze as the bellows deflate. Words form in the foul wind amidst a clatter of teeth and something else flapping in the darkness. The speech is strange, even for words spoken in Morbis. They are articulate, but unnatural.

"Does he live?"

It is Madame Fontanelle.

Her 'voice' changes frequently, but Alisandre nevertheless recognizes the bricoleur's organ-harvested speech. Moreover, the smell of her former governess' bones is hauntingly familiar. Those bones once cradled her to sleep. Their rattle soothed her cries. Their embrace rocked away her childhood nightmares. Their scent was the promise of safety and sweet dreams.[/ic]

[ooc]Looks like you get the wish of meeting the governess.

Your turn, but 3 minor house-keeping things. First, remember to include your Pools for each post, especially when they aren't full. Second, please put speech in italics BBCode. Third, have you updated your character sheet to reflect how many rests you have taken and XP gained (subtracting those you have spent)?[/ooc]

[ic]"The cold-iron will of the justified repudiates the false witcheries of the dishonorable." Decarabia chanted the low, grinding mantra in the Carrion Tongue over and over to herself as she stared down the mesmerizing apparition. In the face of her alien will and hollow, pitiless stare, the ink-moth was utterly impotent, rolling off her as a fine violaceous vapor as she pushes through it undeterred, advancing upon the prone Papillion. She levels Marchocias right between the woman's eyes, but does not pull the trigger just yet.

"Your sorcery has failed you, Papillion." She might have been gloating. It was difficult to tell with a voice like hers, and she had no time to be flamboyant this evening. It would not be long before more of the Watchmen would be upon them both. Decarabia did not fear them herself, but her quarry was likely to be struck in the crossfire and then this entire excursion would be all for naught. "You are faced with two prospects: a certain death..." She gestured over the side of the crane and the body-shattering drop to the unyielding cobblestones below. "...and a less certain one." Seizing the Midnight Papillion by the collar of her frock, she hauls her to the edge of the crane, from where she can see the docked tugboat and with it, a possible avenue of escape.

"Which do you choose?"
[/ic]

[ooc]
Intellect Defense check:
(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6
[/ooc]

[ic]"For now, and little longer," Alisandre responds frankly and directly, tone neutral. The governess had been like a mother to her... but there were few forces more wrathful than the mother of a murdered child. Her own bones could easily be added to Madame Fontanelle's collection.

"The man was wounded by an ur-bone blade. I have stabilized his condition, but I am no chirurgeon. He will be dead soon without prompt medical attention."[/ic]

[ooc]Sheet's updated. My bad on the Pools, you've asked to regularly post those before.

Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 8/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]There is another rattle of bone, and a final exhalation.

"Explain."

No inhalation follows. Only silence.[/ic]

[ooc]You don't have to IC actually describe things, using Alisandre's actual words (though you can if you want to). However, you will need to make at least one roll -a diplomacy check. If you withhold or alter information, add a bluff as well.[/ooc]  

[ic=Decarabia]The Papillion is stunned. "H-how... she feebly stammers as Decarabia effortlessly foils her invocation. Its power broken, the ink-moth fades into nothingness. "That's im-p-possible..." she stutters.

The press of Marchosias' cold steel, however, causes fear to replace her bewilderment. She begins to sputter something in reply, but her words become a garbled scream as Decarabia hefts her over the edge. Frantically, she clutches the shade's outstretched hand. Her half-shod feet kick pitifully in the air. "P-please, please! I'll do whatever you want –p-please!"

Below, the Watchmen finish reloading, then take aim at the trespassers above. They hesitate, however, to fire, seeing Decarabia's precarious hold on the Papillion. "Remain where you are!" one shouts, "You have nowhere to run!"

Further down the street, two more patrols emerge. One flashes a clockwork lantern on the shade and her dangling quarry, nearly blinding both in the harsh limelight. Others aim their pistols. Behind one patrol, a hulking automaton rolls across the cobblestone on articulated treads. Steam hisses from its boiler-hearted torso as well as an assortment of hexed pipes and valves. Voltaic sparks flicker across a vise-like limb, while another arm ends in a massive rotary cannon. Ponderously, the copper-plated construct follows its more fleet-footed handlers.[/ic]

[ooc]Nat 6! Very nice. Especially since your mastery means you hit a DC of 8 –a truly heroic, superhuman feat. Normally, I'd have you make a Might check to grab and heft her, and an Intimidate check, but your two minor benefits plus your last one means she is panicked –especially with the coppers gathering en masse below.

Not sure what you want to do now, but you can either run/jump (and balance) back the way you came, or try and slide down the cable and jump to the boat. The first option require the same checks and DCs as before. The latter doesn't require a balance check. Just a Might check (DC 2) and a jump check (DC 2 for you). Either way, make an Agility defense roll (DC 3). If you fail, roll a balance check.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena drums her fingers on the stained teak bar.

"A glass of marrow-wine, if you have it," Catena requests. "Whatever's cheap if you don't." She glances about, looking for Orchid-Eaters, particularly around the stairwell. "What's upstairs?" she asks as wthe bartender prepares her drink.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]The barkeep's eyes crease momentarily at the mention of the ghul- and lilix-favored liquor. "Fresh out," she breathes unconvincingly. She pours Catena a cup instead from a molasses-stained bottle, then drops in a dark berry from a nearby vine. "Ranckle-rum," she says, "Honest, unwormy, and only two crowns a bottle."

When asked about the upstairs, the masked barkeep chuckles, causing her twin respirators to wheeze fitfully. "What do you want to be upstairs?" she asks lewdly while waving to the pornographic wood-cuts.  

Before Catena can reply, a movement to her left catches her attention. A tattooed man steps from the tea-lit shadows and inserts a crimpled note in the eye-socket of the dead gearborg. Noting Catena's scrutiny, the man scowls, flips up the collar of his canvas-coat, and slinks out the Stallion's entrance.  

Yet, Catena's attention is swiftly stolen by the sound of hollering to her right:

"Breech-raped thrice-bastard of Draukyr's ingrown toenail!"

The voice belongs to a towering, heavy-gutted man who lumbers down a nearby staircase. A pair of slatterns saunters underneath each of his meaty arms, occasionally supporting him as he half-stumbles down the stairs. The man's forearms are elaborately tattooed with fish-headed rose-stems. He wears a patchwork vest that miserably fails to cover his bloated, port-wine stained belly. His silk-striped pantaloons are half-buckled and slung with a holstered dragoon and a boilshark-toothed dirk. A seaman's cap sits haphazardly over his olive-skinned, multi-chinned face. Hexed buttons are sewn into his eyeless sockets.

Those shellaced buttons stare at Catena with brow-contorted rage.

"Ye got some gribble-sucked powder showin' yer muzzle-faced arse round here! That, or yer a briny fish-sucker."

"Either way-" he says pushing past his whores to stand face-to-face with Catena, "-yer good as crab-eaten 'less ye get down right 'ere and now and lick me cannonballs like the hagfaced starfish ye are!"

To accentuate his point, he knocks the woman's cup from her hand with a swipe of his ham-sized fist. The glass shatters splendidly against the crude woodcuts. Fast as a barracuda, his other hand draws his dragoon –a thick-flared matchlock coated in nacre- and sticks it between Catena's breasts.

"Yer move, ye snot-tail ruttin' lily."[/ic]

[ooc]His name is Titus Chum (short for Chumluck). He was the first-mate on the ship that took Catena from Somnambulon to Skein. Unbeknownst to his captain, Titus was a Lophius-born smuggler. Catena may or may not have stolen his stash of counterfeit pence-plates from Crepuscle, but Titus certainly thinks she did.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre silently considers the darkness-shrouded figure. Father trusts her with his children. His family's future. He gave up his finger...

"The tale is a long one, my governess," she replies. "I shall trust that Xedric's state is being seen to."

Calmly, Alisandre begins to speak. She risks a gambit--a considerable gambit--and relates almost everything. Drugging Xedric. Following him. The Chrysanth Ring's ritual combat. Saving his life. Torturing him. His confessions--the nature of the Ring, engineering her downfall, poisoning their father's wife. Saving his life a second time. Bringing him here.

Yet beneath her own lengthy confessions, hidden amidst the many truths, Alisandre neglects to relay a single one. She mentions nothing of Alphosine's involvement. Yes, she accompanied her sister to eavesdrop on Xedric, but it was her own hand that placed the madwine in his drink, and her own hand that tortured him for his secrets.

"I have no proof that Xedric orchestrated my downfall save his word, and no proof of that save my own," Alisandre concludes. "I do not expect anyone to believe me on the basis of such third-hand hearsay. If father examines my stepmother's wine-glasses, however, I am sure their evidence will tell a more compelling story. Xedric is guilty of a great crime against our father, and it is through my doing this is known."

"If I wished it, I could have kept this to myself. Delivered Xedric to a chirurgeon. Blackmailed him for my own benefit."

"If I wished it, I could have simply killed him. It would have been effortlessly simple to dispose of the corpse. The Eastern Cemetary is, after all, full of them."

"I have done neither of these things. There was nothing that compelled me to return here save my own free will. You and my father can level whatever punishment for my actions you see fit. But know it was by my hand that Xedric's treachery was discovered--and by my hand that Xedric was delivered here, alive, to face our father's judgment."

Alisandre regards Madame Fontanelle evenly, her tone unafraid.

"If, however, my bones are to join your collection, then get on with it. The family crypts would have been my first preference, but you will be a fitting place for them to lie as well."[/ic]

[ooc]To clarify my meta-strategy here: Alisandre is basically taking the fall for Alphosine. She knows she isn't a very good liar, so rather than rely on her own glibness of tongue (or lack thereof), she hopes that by spilling such a massive amount of incriminating information about herself, Madame Fontanelle will miss the omission-needle amidst the truth-haystack. (Ie, hoping to rely on a circumstance bonus rather than my own dice luck.)

At the same time, Alisandre hopes to use Xedric's poisoning to make herself look better. I'd planned to use that as blackmail material she'd never actually go to Caraumonde over (since Alisandre doesn't want another sibling either), but given present circumstances, she'll play that card early in order to respin her actions from "I kidnapped and tortured my brother" to "I kidnapped and tortured my brother, yeah, but look at the service I've just done for the family."

Spending 1 grit on each roll, and including my Morbid flaw. Obviously, big gamble here on many levels.

Diplomacy:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 5 - 1, total 4[/blockquote]

Deception:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 5 - 1, total 4[/blockquote]

Might 2/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)

Also, this takes me back! Remember Ashir's similar confession to Taba'at about how events turned out as they did, replete with its own Diplomacy check? We'll see what body parts this PC loses in lieu of testicles.[/ooc]

[ooc]
Agility Defense roll:
(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2

Spending 1 Grit to reduce the DC of the balance check.

Agility check to maintain her balance:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]
[/ooc]

[ic=Decarabia]As Decarabia attempts to take off with her still-clutched quarry, a Watchman fires. Instinctively, the others follow suite. The lethal volley traces the spotlight's beam. Decarabia tries to dodge the barrage, dancing and weaving like a spider on a hot tin plate. Her coat catches the worst of the spark-spitting ricochet and shrapnel. One bullet passes 'harmlessly' through her bloodless innards.

The Papillion, meanwhile, impotently thrashes and screams in Decarabia's grip. Flack slices the woman's face.  She jerks reflexively –and the shift in her weight, coupled with Decarabia's acrobatics, causes the shade to lose her footing.

Both plummet over the edge, away from the limelight and bullet-fire... and to cold ground below. In the split-seconds before they crash into the cobblestone, Decarabia unconsciously twists to cushion her fall using her only means at hand: the Midnight Papillion.

Her last scream reeks of lethe-tea. Its sound is cut brutally short by the crack of her skull on the pavement. Its scent is rapidly drowned in the odor of pooling blood and splattered brain.

Limbs splayed like a broken doll, the Midnight Papillion stares at Decarabia with lifeless eyes. Her countenance is frozen in shock and fear. The faux-mustache dangles ridiculously from her still-warm lip.

Already dead, Decarabia fares infinitely better. A rib sticks dumbly from her necrotic side. Something sloshes in her gut –a ruptured spleen perhaps? Such wounds, though, cause little hindrance to the shade's cadaverous host or her own alien mind.

Decarabia, however, has little time to contemplate the fortitude of her parasitic existence.

Behind her, the Watchmen rush to capture her. They shout at her to halt, reloading mid-run or brandishing moonlit spearswords. The automaton follows, slavishly obeying its punch-card instructions. It levels its rotary cannon in Decarabia's direction. Electricity crawls over its vise-tipped appendage.[/ic]

[ooc]You take 10 damage total from the bullet and fall. 'Nicodemius' is glaringly dead. With the guards closing in on you, two immediate (but not exhaustive) options present themselves: fight or flight.

If you choose the former, DC is 2 to hit, DC 4 to dodge the Watchmen. DC 5 for both rolls vs the construct.

If you choose the latter, make three run checks (you have expertise) and a DC 3 and 4 Agility defense roll.

Also, with a DC 2 Perception check (which you can make reflexively regardless of your above choice), you note the following:

[spoiler]Inside the Papillion's swiftly-staining frock-coat, there are several sealed, now-blood-splattered letters and a dog-eared journal bound in fish-leather.[/spoiler]

[/ooc]

[ic]Hadric stretches his mouth open wide, his jaw unhinging to swallow the air. He takes a great breath, his chest expanding grotesquely; he exhales with the force of a gale into the sails, powering the craft forward - charting a new course for the wayward dreamship. The fog begins to clear, and off the starboard bow a forest of crimson sails appears on the horizon. In a flash Hadric drops from the rigging to the deck of the ship, alarm writ plain across his features. "Admiral!" he calls to the dreamer "We have enemy ships in sector fourty-seven!"

"It's a trap!" the peacock-hat squawks as the literary hodge-podge that constitutes the crew rushes to the gunwales carrying outsized knives and forks. Hadric advances to stand at the dreamer's shoulder, gesturing out to sea with an octopus.

"Keep your wits about you sir; I know that sigil. The Dread Moustache. It's master is a villain of the vilest sort, and foe to book and beast alike. Ride these waves well, or Snibs will see us all rotting in Davey Jones locker." Hadric says as the fleet draws near.[/ic]

[ic=Hadric]The mere mention of the Moustache's name causes the epistolary golems to flutter with fear. They tear out their pages and smudge their ink with despair-penned cries.

"Snibs! Snibs!" the crew scribble into their parchment and paper hides. "Terror of the 616 Winds! Dread-Commodore of the Hirsute Philtrum! Nary a lip has escaped his waxen wrath!"

The eye-shut captain, meanwhile, nods to Hadric, then mumbles new orders to his well-plummed hat. The avian-turban plucks a feather from its rump, then relays the captain's commands with its makeshift quill, literally rewriting over the panic-struck crew with a penmanship that compels as well as calms.

The bibliomentals instantly spring into unified action. A stratagem begins to unfold, bold and daring.[/ic]

[ooc]Make an Intellect check (DC 2 for you) to help win the 'naval battle'.[/ooc]

 

[ic]Catena wastes no time. Seizing her glass of rankle-rum she hurls the concotion into Titus' eyes, hoping that in the confusion she can grab the pistol.[/ic]

[ooc]Not sure what sort of roll this is - Agility?

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Titus' hands may be fast, but Catena's prove swifter. The rum splashes into the man's button-grafted 'eyes'.

As the liquor harmlessly runs down his lidless gaze, Titus barks out a phlegmy laugh:

"Baastan's left pincer! Ye spit grog in me eye-holes?!! Thoggu's slimy muzzle, yer chunder-brained. What did ye 'pect me to..."

Titus' tirade halts as he finally recognizes that Catena has used the distraction -in large part provided by his own bluster- to disarm him and flip the flanged barrel to now point against his prodigious gut.

He chortles, causing his bloated belly and manifold chins to heartily shudder.

"Har-har-ah... Eelish trick. Course, me pistol ain't loaded... so yer still a sharkshat gribble-fish."

Titus stares hard with his black-lacquered gaze.

In the dim tea-light, the Stallion's patrons watch the confrontation with a mixture of bored amusement and murderous preparedness. Pistols and cutlasses are fingered defensively. The masked barkeep remains still, save for the mechanical gasp of her respirator. The red-eyed corsair continues to blow piquant smoke into the already hazy air.

The tension –however- is cut by the sound of fighting outside, rather than inside. There is a sudden cry from the thugs guarding the door, the firing of waxwood bullets, and the sharp crack of batons against bones.

A trio of flash grenades burst into the room, blinding most of the establishment. In their wake, a platoon of Watchmen with black-visors storm the bar, carbines readied. Within a heartbeat, they secure the room, shouting at the disoriented patrons to lay down their hands and heads on nearby tables. Most submit. A few, too proud or drugged to comprehend the situation, resist.  They are uniformly beaten unconscious with the butt of the gendarmie's rifles. The barkeep loudly protests the intrusion and is unceremoniously silenced with a volley of waxwood bullets. The blow causes her to fly back into her rack of liquors, shattering bottles and leaving her dazed and mechanically gasping in pain.

Immune to the grenade's flash, Titus remains standing. His button-stitched visage only slightly deviates from Catena's face. "Friends of yer's?" he whispers.

Meanwhile, a Watchman shouts, "All clear!"

A slender man walks into the room, his brightly polished boots sharply clacking on the wooden floor.  His ribboned epaulettes mark him as an officer, though his breastplate and waxsuit uniform also bear a strange insignia resembling a human being sheared of tentacles. Unlike the other gendarmes who wear black-visors and conical hats of reinforced copper, the man's head is crowned by a pointed hat of red-dyed silk. A pair of hexed glasses conceals his eyes, while a knife-thin mustache adorns his upper lip.

"Thank you, Sergeant," the officer replies with an air of well-oiled authority and disingenuous gratitude.

He confidently strides up to the gearborg skeleton and retrieves the recently stowed note from the dead man's eye-socket. He swiftly reads it. Flashing a predatory smile, he speaks with unbridled triumph:

"The half-woman is here. Third floor, second to last door on the right."

"Bring her to me."

"Now."
[/ic]

[ooc]There are at least a dozen Watchmen inside. Only two are nearby the bar (the two who shot the barkeep) as the rest are guarding the officer, the door, and the other tables. You automatically succeed on your defense roll vs being blinded, by virtue of your innate toughness/reflexes and by dint of you looking at Titus and thus away from the blast (and for being farther away).[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Madame Fontanelle listens to Alisandre's confession with breathless silence. Once the ex-magistra finishes her tale, the bricoleur noisily inflates her purloined lungs, then replies:

"Xedric is not mine. I did not sculpt his cartilage as he slept in his crib, nor did I croon lullabies to his infantile marrow as he learned to walk. I did not massage his newborn mandible nor shape his tender milk teeth as he learned to speak."

She pauses. A delicate rattle of tiny bones breaks the otherwise breathless silence.

"Whether he lives or dies is not my concern. What concerns me is whether his life or death –or the actions of others- threatens my artwork. Tonight, you have threatened my masterpiece."

"Skein is full of tongues and eyes all-too eager to be bought.  This have I taught you. But you have either forgotten or spurned that lesson. Did you think Xedric's outburst at the Comte would cause all to forget the Phel-Nirian-liveried handmaid who followed him after his departure? Did you think that same handmaid who later rode with him on his mad ride across the city would remain unnoticed by the mobs he almost crushed under his wheels?  What did you think those tongues would say when Lucretius was later found roving the Mosswines alone? Did you think those eyes would not see you steal those two corpses and pauper's coffin? And what would they say when Xedric arrived at the Mei-Vourne's doorstep, dying inside a commoner's coffin?"

There is another sharp intake of air. The interrogation continues.

"Xedric may not be mine, but he is your father's. Who do you think he would first suspect? Who would he most likely blame for his eldest son's state? The mysterious handmaid, perhaps? How would he have reacted? How would Alphosine respond to his enraged questions? And how would House Phel-Nirian? Did you mean to incite war between the houses? Or cause your sibling to be disowned by Claudius to join you in the Grand Seplutura? Or have you so utterly divorced yourself from your birthright that you no longer care what happens to House Mei-Vourne and its inhabitants?"

"You offer in recompense Xedric's confession of poisoning Proserpine with barrenness. So be it. My charge is not to protect Caraumonde's unborn, only those who pass from his brides' wombs into my hands. Those are my charges. Those are my children.  Those I toil to protect–so often from themselves. Why would you threaten my masterpiece?"[/ic]

[ic]Alisandre momentarily reflects on the situation's irony. That her own desire to protect Alphosine has, indirectly, earned her this fellow protector's ire.

"Of all my siblings," the ex-magistra begins to reply, "I have ever loved Alphosine the most, my governess--indeed, she is the only one of them I can truly claim to feel that emotion towards. For she has been the only one to show it to me since my disownment. I would not see her share my fate, nor any other harm, and I believe such is within our power to prevent."

"The rabble saw Xedric leave with a Phel-Nirian handmaid, and tongues will wag, you are correct--I had intended but to follow him before events moved beyond my control. Nevertheless, I am confident that my father will not pursue retribution against Alphosine nor House Phel-Nirian when he learns the full details of those events--and that his disgraced daughter, not a Phel-Nirian handmaid, was their chief instigator. Nor do I believe he will allow Xedric to seek vengeance against Alphosine. That does sound like an idea which would cross his brutish mind, but I am sure he will be on a very tight leash--and in little position to threaten Alphosine--once my father learns why his wife has yet to bear him a child."

"Claudius Phel-Nirian has been mired down by legal matters surrounding my cousin's return. Should he fear reprisal from House Mei-Vourne over Xedric enough to divert his attention from the courts, the solution is simple--present me to him as a peace offering. Offer a full explanation of my role in events, along with House Mei-Vourne's full apologies, and allow him to decide my fate. Claudius will have no reason to punish Alphosine, who is innocent of any wrongdoing save spying upon a relative for gossip--and that is no sin for a lady, but a chief activity in many's lives, after all."

"We are alike in our desire to see Alphosine kept safe, my governess. My father has but to hear the tale I have told you for this to be so."[/ic]

[ooc]I figured Alisandre would've heard about Hadric/Claudius while lunching and gossiping with Alphosine.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]
There is a sharp, disapproving rattle of vertebrae and ribs.

"You are gravely mistaken -about a great many things."

"You offer yourself up twice as a sacrifice, first to assuage your father's potential rage, then to mollify Lord Phel-Nirian's. Beyond discounting the possibility that both men might demand satisfaction, your offers suggest you either took no thought for the consequences of your actions till now, or you think so little of your life that you would part with it for little gain."

"Recall your father's punishment of Xaphan, a non-heir grandson, for his attempted assassination of Narimonde, another-at-that-time non-heir grandson. What sentence, then, do you think he would pass on a legally disowned daughter abetting the murder of his now-current heir?"

There is another bony rattle in the dark, another sharp inflation of lungs and subsequent expulsion of necrotic breath.

"No, my childe, Xedric must die another way, another nite, or your life is forfeit for naught. I cannot protect you should he die this way -there are too many tongues, too many eyes. You are fortunate Alphosine's missive reached my handmaiden and not another servant of your father. We might yet avert disaster."

An uncomfortable silence fills the stagecoach before Madame Fontanelle speaks again. 

"We -and we alone- must see to his recovery. Already, there are too many involved."

"There is a grimoire... it may help. Procuring it will not be without risk. Using it will certainly entail many. Leave the former to me. The latter, however, you must do. The grimoire's spirit only bargains with the quick."

A skull reaches forward and grabs Alisandre's hand with phalanges sutured in place of teeth.

"Your father disowned you, Alisandre. Your mother did not."

"I do not abandon my artwork. At times I may revise it; at times, I may break it to make it anew, to strengthen and repair unforeseen flaws and imperfections."

The jaw-fingers retract into the darkness.

"Your imperfections are known to me, Alisandre, as is your potential. I have not abandoned you. All this tonight I do for my artwork, my children, my masterpiece."

"Yet, for this aid tonight, I must ask a boon in return, related to another's artistry." 

[ic]Alisandre slowly lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding at the bricoleur's words and bony touch.

She still wishes to protect me.

Her posture relaxes.

"I pay my debts," the ex-magistra states simply. "And I will owe you a great one for this, Madame, let us make no mistake. I thought Alphosine was the only member of my family not to abandon me, but I see that assumption was incorrect. Daily visits to the crypt are not your way--to provide aid in my hour of need is a far greater thing."

Xaphan's severed, animate appendage scuttles through Alisandre's mind.

"To owe you a boon is preferable to seeing my hands assist the family butler as maids, in any case--if my punishment would indeed be so light. As is bargaining with a grimoire's spirit over my father and Claudius Phel-Nirian."

Alisandre touches the skull-hand that grasped her own. "Tell me what you would ask, Madame. It is within my power, I shall see it done--and if it is not, I shall attempt it regardless."[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]Madame Fontanelle nods approvingly in the darkness, causing a cascade of clattering bones.

She then explains her predicament and related request. The rival bricoleur. Its failure to present itself. Its alleged sculptures of human flesh.  The framed ambrotype. The Midnight Papillion. Decarabia's errand.

"There have been complications," she morosely adds.  

"The Papillion is no longer available for questioning."

"Her corpse, though, is –at least to a skilled necromancer."

As the stagecoach continues its journey, she explains.

"The Watch has requested a Cemetarian to perform an autopsy on the cadaver. Below your bench is a uniform and sawbone's satchel. You will pose as the requested mortician and complete the autopsy. Your true task, however, is to clandestinely effectuate the necessary invocation to question the corpse and discover the source of the illicit ambrotype."

The governess then reaches out to Alisandre with a number of ossein limbs. Vertebrae tongues, teeth-fingers, and sculpted bonespurs caress the woman's shoulder, tickling her flesh. Suddenly, the multifarious appendages latch hold in a piercing grip that causes the ex-magistra to momentarily pass out from pain. When consciousness returns, Alisandre discovers her shoulder is once more hale.  

"Professor Yubei would be dismayed to learn you've been neglecting your sacraosteopathy. You were his star pupil, after all."

There is a soft rattle in the darkness.

"Inside the satchel is a syringe filled with nectar. The nootropic will assist you in the invocation."

The stagecoach stops. A toothless footman opens a door to reveal the outlines of a sepia-lit street. Madame Fontalle bids Alisandre good fortune. She provides an address and promises to be in contact.[/ic]

[ooc]You regain 4 Might. The nectar will, in addition to other effects, allow you the numina to perform the following invocation:

Corpse Communion (2 Intellect points+): You can ask a question of a dead being whose corpse you are touching. Because you must get the answer through the filter of the being's understanding and personality, the being cannot answer questions it would not have understood in life, cannot provide answers to questions it would not have known in life, and in fact is not compelled to answer at all, so you may need to use standard interaction actions that would have convinced them while they were alive. You can ask an additional question for each additional point you spend (determined when you begin). Action.[/ooc]

[ic]"Often the dead have more worth than the living," Alisandre responds to Madame Fontanelle's explanation of her task, as if reciting some familial motto or truism.

As her vision returns, she massages her shoulder and manages a pained half-smile, recalling her days at the Collegia Arcana. Neglected as her old professor's lessons may have been, it was likely thanks to his courses that she was able to relocate her popped shoulder at all.

Alisandre dons the mortician's uniform, taking some amused comfort from the fact this deception will require little actual acting. Autopsying corpses was, after all, something the Mei-Vourne children were trained to do from birth. She thanks her old governess one last time for her aid (and now-hale shoulder), then departs for the Watch's address.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre arrives as the Watchmen's blockhouse, clad in the charcoal frock, hose, and top-hat of the Cemetarians. After a brusque inspection, she is escorted down to a basement corridor crowded with injured gendarmes in varying states of consciousness. Some lay comatose from visible wounds: others sit and moan in liquor-soaked stupors. Fortunately for the Watchmen chirurgeons, not many of the patients, inebriated or otherwise, have the wherewithal to thrash around mid-surgery. Yet, as Alisandre walks past an operating room, she witnesses one exception. A rather large man covered in gruesome burns screams like a stuck pig after the chirurgeon's first cut. He violently kicks out with both feet, sending one of the surgical carts crashing into the distant operating theater dimness and forcing the physician to step back for fear of nicking something important –or be injured herself by the flailing man. Eventually, a pair of orderlies subdues the man, though not before earning a smattering of sharp, broad bruises.

"Don't worry -yer patients aint so lively," her escort dryly quips. The Watchman then ushers Alisandre into a dark cement chamber steeped in antiseptic, formaldehyde, and bleach. A dozen concrete slabs run the length of the room. Half are empty; the rest support still-warm cadavers.  Punch-card dossiers hang from a telescopic lamp bolted to the ceiling.

"Some new recruits just came in from 'cross the hall," the Watchman explains sardonically, "Captain wants them gussied up in addition to dressin' the one we apprehended." He points to a canvas-covered body in the dim corner of the room, then jerks a thumb at the door, "Let me know when yer done, and I'll help file the paperwork and get your pay. Oh, and the court-daguerreotypist will be by. Let me know if she tries to cop a feel again with the stiffies."

He grabs a stack of newsrags and parts with a final word of advice, "Best hurry, else yer bound to get buried alive -or should I say dead- with reinforcements. Some of them boys out there don't look so good."
[/ic]  

[ooc]The punch-card system likely takes her a little bit of time to unravel; fortunately, she's a smart cookie and this is her field of expertise (literally and figuratively). You can auto-succeed on preparing the 5 dead Watchmen, or try for an Intellect DC 3 to rapidly finish them. For the Papillion, they want a report on the level of lethe-tea in her bloodstream (i.e., was it enough to impair memory, how much, how recent, etc.) which is an Intellect DC 4 for you.  Toxicology isn't your speciality, drugging siblings aside.

Assuming no one else is in the room, injecting yourself with nectar can be done without issue –performing the invocation, talking to the corpse, and having it talk back to you, however, make noise. So add a roll to whatever strategy you attempt. [/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre clinically surveys the row of corpses. She fills a steel bowl with water, dips in a rag, and wrings out the excess moisture. Her eyes glint at the familiar sound of water splashing back into a bowl, at the feel of wet, rough cloth in her hands--a familiar preface to a familiar duty. Slowly, reverently, she hand-washes the first cadaver, wiping away grime and waste. She could have used an invocation--magic would have been faster and more thorough--but the rag's usage was ritual. She couldn't even remember the first time she'd taken wet cloth to corpse; Mei-Vourne children were entrusted with caring for the dead as soon as their fine motor skills were sufficiently developed. Under Caraumonde's watchful eye, his heirs' tiny hands gingerly dabbed away the stains of death. Ingrained confidence swiftly replaced that gingerliness, for the earlier his children started, the better they took to the family trade.

Next, Alisandre covers the now-moist corpse's genitals and face with strips of cloth, mindful that the dead deserve privacy just as much as the living. Her fire-charred fingertips work across the cadaver's muscles, kneading away the stiffness of rigor mortis with all the care she would show a living massage patient. She carefully inserts bits of cotton over sunken eyes and glues their lids shut. She bites off a length of thread to stitch the mouth closed, careful not to sew it into a permanent too-tight grimace. That was an easy mistake for beginners. Next, she retrieves her scalpel--used but last night to bash in Xedric's brains--and makes an incision by the clavicle bone, draining out the corpse's blood. Once the coppery-smelling flow tampers off, Alisandre pulls out the cadaver's intestines, kidneys, and other insides with all the casual aplomb of a small girl picking flowers, then drops them into a bucket with a messy wet plop.

That task done, Alisandre sets up a clockwork embalming machine and inserts its drain tube into the cadaver's incision. She scowls when the device fails to start. She should have expected that public undertakers would work with shoddier equipment than a noble family. She patiently coaxes the device into performing its duty, and sickly-green formaldehyde is soon pumping through the tube. Alisandre closes her eyes as the machine whirs and hums, breathing in the all-too familiar chemical scent like baked treats from a grandmother's kitchen. Finally, she pads the corpse's insides with linen strips and sews it back up.

The rag sees a second round of use to wash up leftover blood and formaldehyde. A whispered invocation summons spectral maggots that hungrily devour bacteria and disinfect the corpse--tradition was well and good, but some precautions were better left to magic. Alisandre methodically clips and files the corpse's fingernails, then holds up a shaving razor. She nicks her fingertip and nods in satisfaction as the sharp (by necessity) implement draws blood. She gives the dead man his final shave, then styles and grooms his hair to a series of snip-snip-snip sounds from her scissors. She applies makeup to cover purple bruises and infuse pale features with a blush of life as the finishing touch.

Alisandre washes her hands and looks across the prepared corpse, smiling inwardly to herself at a job well done.

It has been far too long since I was able to practice the family's craft.

Four more cadavers await. Alisandre loses herself in their work. This was her calling. Her duty. Her birthright--far more so than wealth or titles. It was something no treacherous sibling could ever take away from her.

Once the remaining four Watchmen have been prepared to her exacting standards, Alisandre pulls out a small and hex-marked jar from her pockets. The container grows hot and rattles in her hands as she sets it by the final cadaver.

"Yes, the duration of your service will soon be at an end," she mutters impatiently.

Alisandre dips her fingers into the jar and lathers sticky, brimstone-smelling yellow ointment over the Midnight Papillion's features. Miniature howling faces pop over the woman's body like burst pimples. The spirit exults in its imminent freedom and is impatient for that time to come. Alisandre diligently works and rubs the gleeful faces away, forcing the demon to conform to her will. The ointment grows blisteringly painful beneath her palms, hissing like a hot pan thrust into water. When the necromancer withdraws her hands, however, the Midnight Papillion is a plague victim. Horridly-colored boils and blemishes mar her decaying features.

This done, Alisandre washes her hands, stows away the jar, and approaches the guard, exclaiming that she must speak with his superior. "The corpse cannot remain here," she urgently states. She leads the officer back to the morgue and shows off the disfigured corpse, then bedazzles him with a variety of medical, mystical, and technical terms to explain the corpse's present condition. It's uncommon, yes, but victims of some magically- or bio-engineered plagues exhibit no visible symptoms until after death. That makes their spread all the more insidious.

"You are fortunate that I've come this early--your men would be placed in needless risk if the corpse were to remain here. Our facilities are equipped to contain an infection like this."[/ic]

[ooc]She takes her time with the corpses.

Roll to disguise the corpse with corpse-canvas ointment.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+2 : 5 + 2, total 7[/blockquote]

Roll to bluff, spending 1 grit.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 4/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The officer babbles a semi-coherent reply to Alisandre's explanation, then swiftly summons his superior –a slant-eyed woman with pinched features introduced as Watch-Captain Raoule-Hua. The advice of Chief-Chirurgeon Leung is sought. He gingerly examines the pox-seeping body and quickly concurs with Alisandre's 'diagnosis' of nerterologic ptyalism, or 'casket-drool' as it is known in the vernacular. Orders are issued. Respirators are distributed and donned by the on-duty gendarme and physicians. Pressurized nozzles are manipulated by a pair of waxcloth covered janitors; they douse an acrid-smelling concoction over the Papillion's quickly vacated slab. Papers are signed: the 'infected' corpse is officially transferred to the Cemetarians' care. As the hermetically sealed corpse is stowed in an automaton-pulled hearse, Captain Raoule-Hua privately thanks Alisandre for her skillful care of her gendarmes, living and dead alike, and tells Alisandre to seek her out in the future if she has need of the law's aid. As the captain gives a parting handshake to the guised necromancer, she surreptitiously passes Alisandre a folded bill, saying, "For your professional discretion."[/ic]

[ooc]The winch-wound automaton is programmed to return to the station once it takes you to your desired destination. The silk-woven bill is worth 500 crowns, backed by House Lucor-Rrem. Finding a suitably unoccupied place in the Ebon Ward to perform the 'interrogation' is a DC 3. Alternatively, you could head to the sewers where the DC is 1, but 'there be dragons.'

Either way, marvelous post. I really appreciate the detail you put into the mortician role. The dice gods seemed to approve as well.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena waits by the bar, lingering, hoping that Titus doesn't cause any further commotion. Even if she got upstairs, she'd be penned in with no way out. If the "half-woman" is Tandy, she'll have to think of some way to get close to her; if not, she can wait until the Watchmen leave.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]The sergeant and six guards swiftly ascend the stairs as a tight, well-disciplined squad. The rest stay behind with their commander, their rifles still menacingly fixed on the bar's patronage.

One gendarme barks at Catena and Titus to lower their heads and hands upon the bar. Titus almost barks back, but he swallows his pride and complies... though Catena can lip-read his stream of silently-chewed invectives.

"Abhuman filth," the guard mouths more audibly to the crowd.

The commander meanwhile continues to sneer. His hexed-glasses alit though upon spotting the silk-robed bureaucrat. He issues a command to a nearby guard who promptly grabs the man. The bureaucrat initially objects, then silences as the visored-Watchman grimly shoves his muzzle in the man's face.  

There is a brief exchange between the commander and bureaucrat, but their words are lost as the sound of gunfire, shattering glass, and screams echoes down the stairs. Amidst the violent cacophony, the bureaucrat is dragged out of the bar.

A few, tense moments later, the sergeant and five soldiers return. A naked, drug-pricked ghul is brusquely escorted in their midst. Although haggard, bruised from rough treatment, and sprouting berried-vines from several orifices, the ghul woman resembles Red Mei's description of Tandy Suckle.

"Well done, Sergeant," the knife-mustachioed commander purrs with a vicious smile.[/ic]

[ooc]Not sure if you plan to interrupt them now. If so, post your attempted actions and potentially relevant rolls.  Otherwise, I can continue, just let me know your plan so I can adjust my post's end accordingly. Also, based upon your last post, I'm assuming you were complying with the guard's commands (i.e., sitting down your head and hands on the bar -during which they would have disarmed you).[/ooc]    

[ic]Alisandre doffs her hat and graciously accepts Raoule-Hua's promise of aid, stating that it is always a pleasure to service customers who can recognize a quality emalming job. "Most are too beside themselves to notice--unless it's done poorly."

The money note is discretely accepted with a murmured, "It will be as if the corpse never arrived."

Alisandre departs the Watch's headquarters and guides the hearse down Skein's twisting streets. The thought of taking her cargo home--she did prefer to work in familiar surroundings--is considered, then quickly discarded. More than one individual desires more than one type of discretion in this matter. She instead proceeds into the Ebon Ward, looking for an unobtrusive spot within the slums to conduct her business.[/ic]

[ooc](http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 4/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre's search leads her to the Mooncalf Tangle and its warped architecture. There, she finds a long-abandoned warehouse that grants her easy access and complete privacy. Almost hidden among the graffitied crates, rotted pallets, and glass-cracked syringes, a swarm of rats greedily devour a huddled mass. The vermin scatter at the automaton's approach, revealing a half-eaten corpse: a dark-skinned woman dressed in the red-dyed cloak of a Labbimite chymist. A clockwork-nozzled gas-mask dangles from her gnawed face. Its hose spools out to a large bottle of laudanum. The rats eventually return to their grisly feast. No other witnesses remain.[/ic]

[ooc]You're free to shoot up, perform your interrogation -though remember to include a social role of your choice. Also, Alisandre would recognize that the laudanum is a valuable commodity.[/ooc]   

[ic]Alisandre shoos away the rats and pockets her surprise find, already considering potential uses. She opens the casket, pulls up her sleeve, and injects Madame Fontanelle's syringe into a vein. The necromancer closes her eyes and breathes deeply as her mind opens to the aether, exploring higher vistas of consciousness.

Anwers. I seek answers.

She sifts through the swirling mindscape, pulls forth power beyond her own, and presses her hand over the Midnight Papillion's heart. She utters an incintation in Morbis and the corpse jerks like an unconscious woman who's suddenly been electrocuted. Glowing eyes snap open, casting ghastly illumination over plague-boils.

"Where did your living self obtain the ambrotype she was killed over?" Alisandre demands without preamble. Her tone is cold, clinical, and vaguely impatient, as if she were speaking to a faulty machine.[/ic]

[ooc]Alisandre spends 2 Intellect points to ask two questions.

Intimidation roll for her first one:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 6 + 1, total 7[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 2/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The corpse initially attempts to lie. It is punished. Severely.

When the Papillion's dead lips stop screaming, they are far more forthright:  

"From Chun-Lui and Sebastien's studio. 916E Tinplate & Seven Shears. Near Pewtertree and the Floret-Blocks in the Damask Ward. Jun-Moise stole it for me."

The corpse violently shudders, splattering her already pulverized skull and brain tissue against the floor.

"N-now, release me!  My chrysalis, oblivion awaits!"[/ic]

[ooc]With your last 6, you don't need to roll another social check, just ask your last question.[/ooc]

[ic]Good. That is start.

"What do you know of the bricoleur whose work is portrayed in the ambrotype?" Alisandre queries levelly, indifferent to the psychic residue's protests.

She begins tracing an invocation with her other hand in preemptive answer to any dissembling or defiance.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 2/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The corpse's sallow-lit eyes flicker madly. Its mangled fingers flex at disturbing angles. It thrashes, once more bashing its caved-in brain against the warehouse floor as if to silence itself. But Alisandre's eldritch anacrisis tears the words from the corpse's broken-toothed, phlegm-less mouth:

"N-nothing! No-thing but what I've forgotten.. and t-then reminded myself... the l-letters helped me re-call the particulars... my former self k-knew much more... must have known m-much more. I m-must have want-ed to forget... did I k-know the grave-spawn or j-just the ambrotypist? I -this I- no longer re-members... b-but my instructions from my f-former self were c-lear and accurate like all t-the rest. T-they reminded me of the ambrotype's l-location, it's value. I -the former I- was adamant... but I s-said nothing of the bricoleur to myself... I must h-have wanted to f-forget..."

With its last reply, the Papillion's corpse shudders as Alisandre's spent invocation releases it into the paralytic embrace of rigor mortis. Similarly released from the nectar's aetheric rush, Alisandre's mind slips into a nootropic fugue. An uneasy silence settles upon the warehouse. The carrion rats sniff the air and eye the ex-magistra and the now-still Papillion with wary hunger.[/ic]

[ooc]Within the next IG minute of time, Alisandre must make an Intellect defense DC 5 of suffer 1 Intellect damage for every point you fail by. You might consider this the withdrawal or side-effect of your nectar use.

Also, make a Might DC 3 save to avoid becoming addicted to Nectar.

Otherwise, you are free to rewind and release the automaton hearse and proceed as you will.

Finally, the Watch has otherwise stripped the Papillion.[/ooc]

[ooc]Intellect:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6

Might:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

Edit: So, I was gonna roll first and write my descriptions afterwards, taking into account whether A became an addict and how much her trip messed her up. But since there's both a disaster and major benefit coming her way, I'll hold off for you to adjudicate the no-doubt entertaining effects of this bizarre stroke of fate.[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The nectar's rush eases Alisandre's enervated psyche. Yet, the rush -and its seeming lack of negative consequence- reawaken an old psychophysiological hunger for the substance, something she hasn't felt since her nootropic experimentation at Vlerinn-Phoi. The 500 crown-bill sits heavy in her pocket.[/ic]

[ooc]You regain 4 Intellect. She also is now addicted to nectar. Make a 3 DC Intellect check or be distracted by the impulse to immediately obtain/use another dose of nectar (i.e., -1 to all Intellect checks). Acting on the impulse removes the penalty (but may impose others).  
[/ooc]

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

[ic]All-too suddenly, the mystic drug's high is gone--and mundane reality is all-too lacking, all-too drab. Desperate to reattain her former state, Alisandre turns over the empty syringe with trembling fingers, praying there's a few droplets left.

That misguided hope is quickly shattered. Her heart pounds. Her palms sweat. Her gaze furtively darts across the room--if there was laudanum, perhaps someone also left behind Nectar!---then settles on the Midnight Papillion's corpse.

Her family's sacred charges.

A wave of self-disgust hits Alisandre like a second crash, shaking her back to reality. She lugs the Midnight Papillion's corpse onto the floor and punches in a series of commands on the hearse, sending it back to the Watch. She withdraws to the corner of the room so as not to unnerve the rats with her presence, then waits for the hungry rodents to begin their grisly feast.

Once the flesh-eating creatures are at work, she turns and leaves, seeking temporary accomodations until the Eastern Cemetary is open to visitors.[/ic]

[ooc]Alisandre looks for the nearest reasonably safe inn--ie, someplace she's not likely to wake up with her throat cut or the bank note missing, which may or may not entail leaving the Ebon Ward.

Provided these actions are still possible after the 1....

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 6/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Temptation salaciously grinds on Alisandre's psyche. So distracted, she wanders the midnight streets, still clad in her Cemetarian garb, as she searches for a place to rest her bombylious head. Once or twice, she becomes disoriented amidst the tight, tortuous alleys of the Tangle. Tired klaxons sound from the Clockwork Rail above. Below, the variegated din of half-abandoned, half-asleep buildings mingles with the sparse echo of cobblestone footfalls and lonely wagonwheels.

Dimly, Alisandre heads down a pipe-crossed snicket, drawn to a flickering, partially lit gas-tube. It's cracked, vermiform shape announces the establishment's name: the Flukewash Hostel.

Before she can enter, however, she is ambushed by a trio of tattooed graftpunks. They emerge from the pipe-spewed mists, sauntering with naked malice. All three wear threadbare pantaloons and stained frockcoats loosely hanging from their shoulders. Their bare torsos are inked with fantastical images of devils urinating fire on screaming parliamentarians.

Their leader -a bottle-clenched thug with grafted goat-horns- sneers at Alisandre:

"You's gotta pay the tax, mothlicker."

His lackeys laugh. The first, a stout bald man, saddles behind Alisandre as he nervously licks a scaled, demonic claw grafted to his wrist. The second, a multi-pierced woman with mismatched fangs, hefts a pair of flintlock pistols.[/ic]

[ooc]The alleyway is rather narrow and they have you penned in, all 4 of you are in immediate distance away from one another. Roll a DC 2 Initiative (agility-based) to go first. Remember, you suffer a -1 to all Intellect checks.[/ooc]
 

[ic]Alisandre regards the ruffians with cold disdain. She opens her beleaguered psyche to the aether, and by way of response to their demand for a toll, begins to mouth words of power...[/ic]

[ooc]Initiative:

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/ooc]

[ic]Slay the leader. The others may lose heart.

Heart.

Struck by a sudden morbid whim, Alisandre extends her hand towards the horned cutthroat, palm upwards and fingers spread, as if grasping a large object. She pictures the man's thumping, beating heart, and begins to squeeze. She wills his breath to falter, to come in strangled, rattling gasps. She wills the sweat to pour from his brow. She wills his heart's muscle fibers to tug and twitch in horrid discordance, like a can of writhing worms being crushed between a giant's hands.[/ic]

[ooc]Using grave's call. Spending 1 grit to negate my addiction's penalty. 4 dmg if I hit him.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre's hex catches the gang off-guard. The horned thug can barely scream before his heart implodes into a sanguine pulp. His still-warm corpse crumples to the ground. His blood, violently translocated by witchcraft, profusely spills from Alisandre's clenched fist. 

The stout, claw-grafted thug gapes in shock, then turns to flee. The pierced woman similarly recoils, but reflexively aims and fires her pistols at the nigromancer.[/ic]

[ooc]DC 2 Agility check to dodge or take 4 might damage[/ooc]

[ooc][blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre jerks behind the alley wall, just in time for the hail of bullets to harmlessly ring against stone. She whips out and points a red-drenched finger towards the fleeing pistoleer. The blood on her hands begins to sizzle, hiss, and smoke. Then writhe. The nigromancer motions sharply, and a burning, sanguine missile flies towards the woman's head.[/ic]

[ooc]Same deal, 4 dmg if I hit.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6-1 : 6 - 1, total 5

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 4/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic]Catena waits things out, allowing the Watchmen to disarm her if they wish. There's little point in offering resistance - not when she's up against so many men, alone. With any luck they'll leave soon and she can have a look around the Ghul's room. Perhaps she can find some clue amongst the grave-spawn's possessions.[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]One of the poorly-aimed bullets catches the fleeing claw-thug in his leg. So injured, he crashes into a nest of pipes. He drops, bruised and bleeding.

Meanwhile, Alisandre's ensorcelled blood hardens into flesh-piercing cruor. It stabs through the woman's skull, imbeds into her brain, and causing a chain reaction of ischemic clots. The eldritch stroke first paralyzes, then plunges the graftpunk into unconsciousness.

Abruptly as it began, the altercation ends. A weary silence fills as the alleyway. Cyan light continues to flicker from the Flukewash's sign.[/ic]

[ooc]Make a sight-based perception check, but otherwise proceed with whatever action you wish. The woman is dying. The guy is just knocked out -but bleeding from his leg and may die. The leader, obviously, is dead, dead.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre gestures at the comatose woman, and her head explodes in a gory shower as the nigromancer causes her skull to splinter into dozens of fragments that leap to escape their fleshy prison. She waves two fingers and the bone-shards fly towards the man, shredding his face into bloody tatters. Skein was better off without such people, who had dared raise hand against one of noble blood. Disguised or not.

She calmly proceeds towards her destination without a backwards glance, muttering a last invocation to clean her clothes.[/ic]

[ooc]Perception:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

I didn't see any rules for coup de graces, but assumed killing helpless foes is possible without dice. If not, feel free to roll my attacks for me.[/roll]

[ic=Alisandre]The Flukewash opens its chymical-slick gate, admitting Alisandre and the incarnate wash of aether that trails her psyche.

Inside the dim-lit hostel, a tattooed, creased-face bellhop looks up at the Cemetarian-garbed necromancer. There's a muttered exchange, a passing of crowns, and a cot is arranged. Above and beside, other beds hold somnolent occupants. Their murky shadows lie still and silent. A lonesome fly buzzes slowly in the dark. The cot waits, more indifferent than inviting.[/ic]

[ic]Alisandre represses a scowl at the accomodations. The family crypts were not luxurious, yes, but they were home in a way that no other place could be.

She changes out of the Cemetarian uniform into her usual attire; white frock and hose, gray mantle-coat, black leather gloves to cover her maimed hands, and the plaster of her dead mother's face that she saw the world through--on more levels than one. When dawn comes, she returns to the Eastern Cemetery without delay. Madame Fontanelle had promised to remain in contact, and Alphosine would no doubt desire to be as well--the best thing would be to remain somewhere they knew they could find her.

Those reasons, among others.

Alisandre strokes the transparent glass top of her mother's hermetically sealed casket, gazing upon the rosy cheeks flush with faux-life, the elaborately coiffed and styled hair, the closed eyelids that seemed ready to flutter open at any time when their owner woke from death's sleep. Alisandre had outdone herself on that embalming job, but family deserved nothing less.

"Suicide, Mother? Did my failed chaining-rite drive you to such despair, or was there another reason?" she asks the preserved corpse without preamble.

As ever, Alisandre cannot tell if the response--if any--comes from her mother or her own mind.[/ic]

[ic=Alisandre]"Suicide?"

Belphia's corpse –or perhaps Alisandre's nectar-fogged psyche- responds:

"My dear, sweet-dreaming childe, how can the dead commit suicide? I died long before your Chaining."

"Don't look surprised, my darling. You all of all people should know. After all, you killed me. From the moment your zygotic worm blossomed in my womb, I was dead."

"But I'm glad you're home, my darling. I so missed you last night; the gala was not the same without you. Your absence particularly vexed your father. I tried to assuage his fears, but he was ever a sentimental man. If you can still call him that. The taxonomy escapes me."

"No matter. Today, whilst you sleep, I shall recite one of your favorite cradle-poems,The Thirteen Fits of Agony, starting where we last left off. The closing of the twelfth canto, I believe? Yes, the thirteenth approaches."

"Seek me with thimbles, seek me with care,
Pursue me with forks and hope,
Threaten my life with well-coiffed hair,
Charm me with smiles and soap..."

The recitation, real or imagined, continues. As it does, Alisandre notes that the crypt has been meticulously cleaned and restored to its typical, lifeless polish –no sign remains of yesterevening's deeds. Even the foxlight fungus has been exactingly pruned.

"...meagre and hollow, but crisp,
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
With a flavor of will-o-the-wisp..."

Sadly and perhaps surprisingly, though, the crypt is otherwise barren: neither presents nor missives from Alphosine or Madame Fontanelle rest therein.

"Rouse me with muffins –rouse me with ice,
Rouse me with mustard and cress,
Rouse me with jam and judicious advice,
Then set me conundrums to guess..."

Clockless time tics on. The cravings for nectar gnaw at the ex-magistra's mind. Thirst paws at her throat.

"There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream.
Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called Mortality told his tale of woe,
In an antediluvian tone."

A scuttering, swift and soft, begins to echo down the crypt's ingress. No wards, demoniac or mechanical, are triggered by the approaching entity. The echo, despite its unnatural mien, is familiar to the disowned noble.

"Softly and suddenly vanish away,
and never be met with again..."

The disembodied hand emerges. It races across the marble floor, embalmed fingers flexing and glyph-burned nails clacking like a grotesque, porcelain spider. A bone-shaved signet ring, depicting the seal of House Mei-Vourne, rests prominently upon the thing's middle digit. With horripilating dexterity, it clambers towards Alisandre: the unliving left hand of Xaphan, her half-nephew.  

With a spastic leap, it lands at Alisandre's feet. The servitor then rolls itself over, as if waiting for something to be placed in its necrotic grasp.[/ic]

[ooc]During your rest, you are able to spend your prior day's last recovery roll. Also, should you wish, you can spend additional time this 'morning' at the crypt to use some of today's recovery rolls. Regardless, you have the option to either use the roll(s) to restore points to your pools OR you can spend a roll to attempt to shake off the nectar addiction (Intellect defense roll vs DC 4). If not, roll an Intellect defense roll vs DC 3 to resist the craving (and withdrawal if you don't sate said craving).

As for Xaphan's hand, you would recognize the gesture as requesting a writing implement. The hand has a number of 'names' among the family members, including Geierfingers, Penance, Memento, the Sinistral, the Usurper's Hand, and Nails. [/ooc]

[ic=Catena]As the Watchmen escort the grave-spawn prostitute out the Impregnated Stallion, the officer halts the sergeant and some of the guards.  

"Sergeant, while our primary mission is resolved, I think we would be remiss if we did not address the flagrant safety hazard before us. Why, look at these miscegenationists and flesh-traitors all crowding together in this drug-fogged den. I shudder to think what would happen if a fire broke out and they were unable to escape."

"Don't you agree, Sergeant?"

The officer does not wait for a reply, but departs in a staccato click of boot-heels.  

The sergeant, meanwhile, answers with a lightning-swift pair of rifle-shots. The bullets surgically blast the joints of the Stallion's sign. The gas-tube sea-horse plummets, blocking the entrance with its wreckage of spewing glass-shards, vapors, and elyctric sparks. At the crash, the patrons rouse from their torpor. Yet, before the screaming, now-shouting mob can truly respond, the sergeant's aides fire a final salvo. Thermobaric rounds slip through the all-but blocked ingress and explode in cancerous fireball![/ic]

[ooc]Make an Agility defense roll. Also, make a Might defense roll.[/ooc]

[ooc]Last night's recovery roll:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Today's addiction-kicking roll:
[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre pours a cup of mulled wine from Alphosine's earlier presents, closes her eyes, and listens to her mother's grave-song. She knew the rest of the words by heart.

You may charge me with murder--or want of sense--
We are all of us weak at times
But the slightest approach to a false pretence
Was never among my crimes!

Alisandre savors the rich spiced taste, but just as much, admires the crypt's upkeep. She didn't need to see her surroundings to do so; she could feel it in her blood. All was in its proper place. All was as it should be. Within this house of the dead, this most revered of places for a Mei-Vourne scion, a craving for alchemical substances seemed utterly insignificant. Alisandre would inevitably be as lifeless as its present occupant someday. All desires were as nothing before the grave. The insatiable, unrelenting pounding her head for more quiets to a low thumping, then ceases altogether--like a once-vigorous man faced with the specter of his mortality, blanching in terrified denial, and finally breathing his last.

Xaphan's hand stirs the ex-magistra from her reverie. That confirmed it; Father had certainly paid a visit. Perhaps he merely wished to pay his respects to his deceased wife--such was no trivial thing to one of the family--but somehow, it seemed probable that wasn't his only reason.

Alisandre grimaces behind her mask. Best get it over with. She retrieves a dip pen for the hand's use, then lays a blank sheet of vellum over the skull-and-stone memorial bench repurposed as her dining table. She even lifts the thing up if it requires assistance, though from what she'd seen it was more than capable of managing on its own.[/ic]

[ooc]Talk about a portentious set of rolls to resume the game with.

Pools (including the +1 I left out): Might 6/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 10/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The mumia-scented servitor accepts the utensil with an epistolary flourish, dips its nib into the provided well, and proceeds to transcribe a letter with metronomic penmanship. Thereafter, it drafts, then annotates, a map at the parchment's bottom, neither slowing its mechanical rapidity nor pausing to consider its content. Upon finishing, the necrotic hand returns the dip-pen and fans a few fingers to dry the ink. Seemingly content, it gives a shallow 'bow', springs off the memorial bench, and scutters back from whence it came.  

Alisandre is left alone –at least among the living- to read the letter.

Although never explicitly identifying its author, the missive appears to come from Mei-Vourne's governess, rather than its patriarch. Its content, whose meaning remains carefully ambiguous without proper context, reveals the location of –and suggested method to obtain- the grimoire needed to revive Xedric.[/ic]  

[ooc]Portentous, indeed. The digital dice gods still love ye (or Alisandre at least). Also, marvelous writing, FE. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy this.

With that 6 to kick the nootropic addiction, you not only shake the one-hit nectar-addiction, but regain an additional 6 to your Intellect pool.

As for the letter, it reveals that the grimoire (which contains a bound demon and the instructions to conjure it) is in the possession of Nybras Guillemeau, or more accurately, stored in the Mothfish Athenaeum, Nybras' library-salon in the Viridian Ward. Normally, the Mothfish Athenaeum, which occupies the ninth and tenth stories of the ward's 12th Tower, hosts Nybras and his esoteric clubs. Today though, Nybras will be away, visiting his father, Rabelais, at Vlerinn-Phoi. The library should be all-but empty due to the adjacent conservatoire being used today by the Somnambulon Philharmonic, who are practicing for an upcoming performance (Nybras is hosting its famed conductor, Boriss Helmuth). The grimoire is secretly stored inside the chest cavity of a displayed mummy. The mummy, said to be the funereal concubine of the Priest-King Balgol, is located on the ninth floor (with the map providing a layout of the Mothfish Athenaeum) -the map provides a diagram of the floor. The letter provides the rune-key used by the salon-servants to enter Athenaeum's back-entrance using the elevator. Since Narimonde originally gifted the grimoire to Dean Rabelais upon the former's appointment as Vlerinn-Phoi's professor of Diabology, the letter instructs Alisandre to remain undetected, and leave no trace of her theft, in order to avoid shaming the family.

Once she obtains the grimoire, the letter directs her to immediately head to the offices of Hearsecloth & Lacebones, allied coffin-makers/funeral parlourists in the Maggotorium. Finally, she is urged to hurry, as her brother's health is deteriorating. [/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre wastes no time and departs for the Viridian Ward after a brief farewell to her mother's corpse. Mindful of all potential eventualities, she exchanges her mask and garb for that of a simple servant. It had worked to her benefit once before, after all--worst came to worst and she was spotted, another was guilty of her crimes. Perhaps a greedy collegiate employee wanting to fence the university's treasures.[/ic]

[ooc]If the clothes from her earlier stint as Alsphosine's handmaid will do, she wears those. If not, she'll make a pitstop at a clothing store if it doesn't take too much time.

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 16/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The Ebon Ward greets Alisandre with its typical louse-ridden rancor. Tramping through the Meat-Moulde Slums in search of a suitable guise, the ex-magistra is nearly soaked head-to-toe by a bucket of innards and vomit dumped from an overhead window. From the illiterate snickering above, it is unclear if it was accidental.

Her need of alternative clothing so heightened, Alisandre swiftly settles upon the nearest vendor: a vagrant-looking, yellow-lipped costermonger sitting atop a menstruation-stained bed sheet littered with equally dubious wares. Upon seeing Alisandre, he feverishly tries to sell her a few worthless bits of trash, raving about the aroma of a broken candle, the lands trod by a sole-less pair of boots, the shadowy history of a tangled ball of fish-hooks, a rag that once veiled one of Caraumonde's myriad brides on her wedding night. The price he asks for such babel-touted baubles is beyond extravagant; he huffs and puffs, laments the greed of his prospective customer, and is shocked when the woman instead asks after an adjacent set of crumpled clothes: a grey tunic with a beaded belt, a pair of paint-chipped wooden shoes, a gauzy veil, and a cloth cap whose top is stitched to an open, fungus-crawled tome. Aghast at the woman's interest in such 'mundane' raiment whilst in the presence of "glory-drenched treasures," the costermonger begrudgingly trades the outfit for a chance to pick off the 'choice' innards from Alisandre's clothes. "Embalmed spleen of the three-headed eagle from the bowels of Tza-Xellim, marked by the shadow-wheel of sky-ghilan," he explains with a lick of his sallow lips.

Ridding herself of the equally odious garments and costermonger, Alisandre escapes the Ebon's depressing. Along the way, she overhears numerous newsrag-hawkers, rabble-rousers, and lay-a-abouts heatedly gossiping about the Rot-Briquet Riots and rumors of impending curfews, roving Guillotine Squads, and an ashgeist epidemic. Ruining the morning canards' monotony, a baggy-eyed woman preaches against the evils of the "half-men" with a crackling speaking-trumpet and iron ladder. Her diatribe draws a few dozen investigators, which in turn attracts the prowling, pilfering fingers of the local guttersnipes. One street urchin nearly snatches Alisandre's coin-purse, but vanishes into the press when spotted.

Avoiding any further altercations, Alisandre crosses the Radula that bifurcates the Clockwork City's impoverished from its empowered. Dominating the western shore with its perfumed esplanades, Skein's famed towers bask in the rising sun. The honeyed light dances across the gigantic, organic edifices and their walls of scintillating chitin and prolix machinery. The sight of the colossal, part crustacean, part clockwork, structures cannot help but strike Alisandre's heart with a swelling pride –and a stinging bitterness. Pushing past those warring emotions and the well-heeled pedestrians and leashed demons that lazily stroll between the Moultewing Promenande and its lined, serpentine statues of feather-plucked raptors, the guised necromancer enters the Viridian Ward.

Inside the philosophers' quarter, Alisandre is home. Or at least, within sight of her former home –Mei Vourne Estate. Separated from the ward's twelve towers by the poetic hedge-mazes of the Calligram Labyrinths, the estate adjoins Vlerinn-Phoi's western entrance via the Medusalem's lapisdescent statuaries. Five massive funerary stelae and obelisks –each laboriously imported from the dead civilizations of Cullys, Dracheen, Yutteril, Gengrymar, and the Tsathii Empire- mark the estate's pentagram-shaped borders. At the heart of this pentacle, the Mei-Vourne Manor proudly broods. Grim, black granite walls form the manor's foundations and lower levels. Atop this squat structure -which originally belonged to the city's foremost thanatomuseum- newer additions sprout like prodigious, petrified fruiting bodies. Blue as a fly's belly, these disturbingly beautiful, marble towers mimic the flowing curves and extrusions of Skein's living edifices. Alisandre can vaguely discern, but vividly recall, the outline and rattle of the fettergeists tethered to the domes' legion of geier-winged weather-vanes, houseglass finials, and lightning-smote sculpture-spikes. From the distance, the geists resemble a cloud of unliving spores hovering over the manor's fungus-like towers.

With bittersweet effort, Alisandre turns her back on the home that bansihed her and heads to the Athenaeum. She skirts the Calligram Labyrinths, spying an idle pursuit amongst diamante trellises involving four students and a stuffed fossorywyrm wearing a bejeweled codpiece. Their wistful laughter soon dies off as she leaves the hedge-mazes and enters the serpentine pathways that curl and twine about the ward's spires.

The Twelve Towers penetrate the sky, comingling via vertiginous walkways and networks of tubing, pneumatic pipes, meshing gears, and coiled springs that ceaselessly feed the ravernous spires their fetid, alchemical diet. The towers in turn support a mélange of libraries, museums, art galleries, and scholar-salons, which in turn are infested by a sleepless hive of intelligentsia. Philosopher-maids sing from the walkways as they carry the morning's tea.  Literati hurl massive half-finished opuses from windows and scream like sleep-deprived children. Collegia researchers and enterprising assassins seek the wisdom and produce of apothecaries and alchemists. Gowned professors and parliamentarian technocrats debate autothaumaturgy, pangeometry, and more carnal indiscretions amidst wagging fingers, masked smirks, and sipped sherry-glasses. Even on Moulting, Academia is nothing if not vigorous in the Viridian Ward.

No longer assaulted by the East Side's stench and squalor, Alisandre is made painfully aware of her own when shes passes between the Jade Strix and Balde Harpy. There, betwixt the opulent shadowmilk-cafés, dandies and divas gawk, chortle, and haughtily pinch their noses at Alisandre's vagrant presence. So distracted by the denigration –and the recollection that her former entouage often made similar gestures- Alisandre accidentally enters the service entrance to the eleventh, rather than the twelfth, tower. Swiftly realizing her mistake, she turns back, only to have her pathway blocked by a heavily-robed figure that steps from the shadows.

"You're late," the stranger says, not budging.  

As Alisandre's eyes adjust to the industrial gloom, she discerns that the figure's robes are covered in hundreds of tiny chains that support a motley assortment of broken keys. Oddly, the metalline panoply makes no sound, even as the robed head nods in speech.

"We heard about Rossignol and worried that the Watch nicked you."

Pointing to a piston-framed doorway that reeks of chymical musk and fungi, the stranger continues:

"But I see you've brought the relic. Come, the others are waiting. Maintaining the ritual has been... costly."[/ic]

[ooc]Ah, the fruits of a nat 1 disguise checks.[/ooc]

[ic]Home. So near and yet so far.

Abruptly jolted out of her reverie by the chain-shrouded figure's unmoving presence, Alisandre contemplates her present fortunes with something between self-deprecating wryness and stoic resignation. The point of the disguise had been to avoid entangelements, but intent mattered for little. The thought of sending this latest obstacle to an early grave with a timely bone-warping invocation is briefly considered--her own life was on the line, after all, albeit indirectly--and then discarded. Too many unknowns.

"Lead on," she replies simply.[/ic]

[ooc]Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 16/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The key-chained stranger leads Alisandre deeper into the tower's innards. Spiraling corridors quiver with the pipe-caged effluvia of greasy pistons and alchemical sluice-gates. Sigiled portals open with the noisome click of metaphysical tumblers, then shut ominously once Alisandre passes their thresholds.

Eventually, the stranger escorts Alisandre into a chamber strewn with enormous, venous tubes that protrude from a series of chitin-braced vats. Inside the glass-paneled tanks, chymical reagents churn and glow with a pink-sick phosphorescence. Secreted between these vats and their bilious glimmer, a ritual transpires.

Alisandre immediately recognizes the ceremony's aetheric puissance. It permeates the chamber. Startlingly, the eldritch wash awakens the decrepit tome that frames her hat. Its milden edges blossom in fecund glyphs of finger-thick mold. Its hide-cover lecherously squirms and gasps.

So distracted, Alisandre struggles to make sense of the writhing, nest of flesh that forms the rite's epicenter. Naked masses tremble, grind, and moan, but their once-independent shapes are no longer quite human. Their boundaries are blurred and aberrant, their tumorous flesh slick with jellied molds as well as lust-sweat. An orgiastic rite, Alisandre decides, One gone either horribly wrong or perversely right.

Robed figures encircle the metamorphosing celebrants, watching with veiled expressions. Five in number once Alisandre's escort joins them, they are all chained with a unique kind of bric-a-brac: shards of gramophone records, disassembled halves of dull shears, prematurely exposed heliotypes, rust-seized gas grips, and of course, broken keys. Noting Alisandre's appearance, they silently regard a final, remaining spot in their bleach-marked hexagram, and wait.[/ic]  

[ooc]Welcome to the party. Red cups are in the corner.[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre furrows her brow, remembering back to her studies at the Collegia. The choice of these particular gas-grips, heliptypes, shears, keys, the orgy... a rite to summon Succorbenoth, chief eunuch of Hell, if she wasn't mistaken. The proffered sacrifice was most ironic. Did the participants have any idea what they really were?

Her eyes drift down towards the grimoire. The mighty demon was a source of much knowledge, but asking her own question was not without... dangers. Still, had she not learned within these very walls that no power came without price? She had few enough weapons against her remaining brothers, and she would not regain her rightful place without taking risks.

The nigrimancer wordlessly takes her indicated place among the six-pointed inscription and snaps the motley chain around her wrists. As the quivering, sweating mass of indistinct flesh reaches the climax of its rite below, Alisandre cracks open the tome and prepares to throw wide the gates of Hell.[/ic]

[ooc]Rolling in advance for whatever the summoning requires. Add or subtract any applicable bonuses/penalties.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/ooc]

[ooc]Psych strain-weathering roll. Spending 1 grit.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 2 + 1, total 3[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 15/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic]Catena curses in Chattelchatter - a rapid expostulation of half-hissed, half-snarled syllables - and hurls herself over the bar to avoid as much of the malignant blast as she can. She keeps herself low, creeping along as if she were once more in the lightless crawl-ways of Dolmen's cobwebbed undercity.[/ic]

[ooc]Agility roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Might roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 8/13, Agility 9/12, Intellect 5/7[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena lands deftly beside the groaning barkeep just as the salvo explodes. The incendiary torrent ravenously consumes both flesh and fog. Above, liquor bottles shatter, then burst into violent plumes of green and blue flames. The salacious woodcuts topple and char. Half-melted shards and blackened splinters rain down on Catena, but her lilix-lashed skin hardly feels their touch. Across the bar, trapped patrons scream and shout, while others silently burn, knocked unconscious by the themobaric blasts. Amidst the din, she hears a hex go awry, followed by the sound of creaking trees and the undetectable scent of boiling pus.

Off to the side, Titus grunts. He half-crawls to the stairs. A broken chair-leg juts painfully from his rump, his seaman's cap a smoldering ruin.[/ic]

[ooc]You take no damage, by virtue of your defense rolls and AC.
[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Hell opens with a fetid gasp.

Grimoire in hand, Alisandre performs the prolix invocations, drawing upon the rite's heady puissance. With each hex cast, the fine layer of black mould grows on the tome's cover and inner diagrams, thicker and darker, crawling across each page with a consumptive hunger. With each hex cast, one panoply of bric-a-brac becomes ruined. As Alisandre tears a wet hole between the realities, the shears bend and smolder. As she wards the ritualists' senses against the arch-demon's presence, the heliotypes and gramophone shards warp and screech. As she binds the demon within the hexagram, the gas-grips squeal and rust. As she locks the paraphysical breach against other intruders -a lesson learned from the Membrane Wars- the myriad keys melt like ferrous wax.

Caught in the eldritch nexus, the orgiastic mass shudders and moans. The conjoined flesh becomes blotchy, then dark, and finally a livid shade of deep red. At the ritual's apex, the flesh-pit erupts. Skin sloughs away,  revealing a hideous profusion of fruiting bodies that twine and pulse in perverse delight. Spores drift through the gate and entice the desired se'irim with their irresistible aroma.  

Succorbenoth slides through the paraphysical hole like a ghastly afterbirth.

Its true, sanity-sapping form hidden by Alisandre's witchcraft, Succobenoth resembles a massive slug, riddled with glistening folds. An armless torso bursts from the slimy bulk, its red skin pulled by six pairs of pendulous breasts. A long, blood-engorged neck carries the demon's head, its visage resembling a cassowary's face fused to a baboon's callus. A cloying, fecund odor issues from its milden beak.

Seeing the pulsing, mouldspawn heap, the Horned Eunuch shrieks with gluttonous bliss. The demon gorges itself, moaning with pleasure as the fruiting bodies slip down its gullet. Only when its feast is finished does the demon finally regard the waiting celebrants.

"E n Q u I R e, dElicIous PEts."

Its voice presses against Alisandre's psyche, like a worm delving into an overripe peach. Beside her, the robed diabolists squirm, then one by one, they pose their questions:

"Where is Abduxiel's seed?"

"Shall the Debutante supplant Shenn?"

"Which Parliamentarians suspect the Faminites' plot?"

"What is the seventh syllable of royalty?"

"From what font does Chancellor Pheliphas' vigor flow?

With each inquiry, Succorbenoth convulses, then lays a viridian, slime-covered egg. Secrets visibly swim underneath their jellied shells. When the fifth egg is shed, the demon regards Alisandre with a prurient gaze. The grimoire's last page writhes beneath her fingers.[/ic]

[ooc]You succeed. You take 6 Intellect damage. You must choose to either banish the demon or pose your question. Either way, make an Intellect check.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena grunts, scuttling towards the stairs. She grabs Titus, hauling him up as best she can.

"On your feet, Chumluck," she mutters, not sticking around to help the man further. She sprintsfurther up the stairs in search of Tandy's room.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]Titus swears at Catena's aid, "Oi, get yer crimping pincers off me, ya hagfaced hornswaggle!" He lumbers after her, but her pace soon outstrips his. As he falls behind, he calls out after her, "Spume-belly! Don't think those nacre-plates are sunken! -or me barker ye got spine fingered!"

Catena, meanwhile, rushes to the third floor, recalling the officer's directions. As she bounds the last step and veers left, she sees signs of the recent firefight. Bullet-holes and bodily fluids mar the cheap-plastered walls and smalt-blue gas-lamps. Two Orchid-Eaters lay sprawled in their own blood beside a splintered door.

Inside the room -which resembles a cross between a prison-cell and botanical laboratory- another thug, riddled with gunshots, mumbles incoherently. A fourth figure interrogates him with a pair of pruning shears. The figure, whose back is turned to Catena, wears a stained apron, a bandolier of syringes, and a seahorse-shaped gas-mask. The glass snout gurgles as the figure shouts:

"Who took her?! Was it the Skulls?! Nine-eyes?!"  

The thug gurgles something nonsensical in reply. Blood bubbles from his blenching lips.  

"Incompetent," the masked figure grouses with his watery voice, "Impermissible."

"I might save you-," he continues, one gloved hand caressing a syringe, "-but I'll cut my loses."

He punctuates the last phrase by snipping the dying man's tongue. As the thug drowns rapidly in his own ichor, the masked figure adds, "Things more worthy will grow from your mulch."

Wiping his shears on his apron, he stands and turns, only to see Catena blocking his egress.

"What now?" he asks drolly.[/ic]

[ooc]Your move.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena speaks with slow deliberation and at uncharacteristic length. She steps slowly towards the strange figure, letting her words sink in. Her voice is a cracked whip, a glowing iron brand.

"Listen gholmuz. Tonight I've been choked, crushed, blood-sucked, burnt, vomited-on, shot-at, and nearly blown to bits - and all for the sake of some mincing corpse-fucker named Xalmas Rasch. You'll understand if my usual even temper is suffering from a momentary defecit of tranquility." She moves a step closer, eyeing the shears and the gas-mask. "So. If you don't want to find out just how far I can wedge that gas-mask up each and every orifice of your body, you'll answer my questions. I know this was Tandy's room. I don't know if what you were doing to her had anything to do with Xalmas. But if you know where Xalmas is, tell me now. I want to know why Tandy's name was stricken from official records, and whether it was connected to Xalmas. I don't care what sick little operation you're running here" - she eyes his syringes - "but if Xalmas was mixed up in it you'll tell me about that, too. Start talking." She clenches her fists, knuckles cracking.[/ic]

[ooc]Not sure if this requires a roll?[/ooc]

[ooc]She has had quite the day. Who threw up on her? 

Regardless, awesome speech. Make an Intimidate roll (Intellect based; the speech and situation give you a 2-step benefaction). In case you flub it, please roll an Initiative check as well (Agility-based).[/ooc]

[ooc]Ashgeists vomited stuff all over her.

Intellect - and I'll apply one level of Grit (2 points from the Intellect Pool):

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Initiative:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 8/13, Agility 9/12, Intellect 3/7[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Sacheverell falters under Catena's grim minacity.

Her words punch through his nonplussed mien like a hot stilettos. When the abhuman cracks her knuckles, Sacheverell panics. He screams for all-too absent henchmen. He feebly attempts to retreat, half-stumbles over Tandy's gleet-stained cot, and tries to hurl a pressured vial at the mercenary's feet.

Catena, however, is too swift. Reflexively, she snatches the vial before it brushes the milden rug and closes the distance between herself and her panicked prey.  

Sacheverell falls to his knees. He blubbers behind his hydroponic mask. He begs. His conceit shatters with the fragility of his mask.

"P-please, I'll tell you everything y-you want to know..."

His confession is comprehensive, if long-winded. His sins are manifold, after all.

Yet, before Sacheverall can complete his absolution, manic footfalls crash down the corridor. Three goons burst into the room, swinging truncheons and floweret-inked fists. As their rose-burning eyes settle on Catena, Dr. Sach's shouts:

"Kill the albino!"

Without hesitation, they rush the foreign mercenary. They howl, froth dripping from their jowls.  

Down the swiftly-filling corridor, other footfalls join the tumult.[/ic]

[ooc]The windowless room is quiet crowded now, so heavy/large weapons suffer a -1 to attack. Because you rolled a 5, you can go twice. DC to hit the crowded goons is 1 (same for the half-kneeling Dr. Sach). Catena can tell the thugs are hopped up on lyssa or some similar substance.

Typically, I would have given you a perception roll to hear the approaching thugs, but there is still a lot of noise coming from two floors below. Additionally, she was distracted by Dr. Sach's "confession". From her interrogation, she learns the following (in a far less linear fashion):

Xalmas Rasch was a regular patron of the Stallion, as Dr. Sach catered to his appetite for new, exotic drugs as well as his taboo 'necrophilia'. Tandy Suckle was his favorite. Sach claims that Xalmas' last visit to the Stallion was eight days ago. Sach claims that Xalmas showed up, already drunk, grousing about his sister's death with Pieng-Luc. He spent a bunch of crowns on ghostgrass and asherat, and rented Tandy for the night. They then went out to find other diversions. They left Pieng-Luc sometime in the early pre-dawn, and went into the Tarnish to meet an alchemist-junkie, an expatriate from Erebh, to buy some thrum. After doing so, they were walking back when they were attacked by a gang of 'pig-things'. Xalmas fought them off, and ordered Tandy to run -which she did, all the way back to Sach. Last she saw of Xalmas, he was hacking at the pig-things -they bled like flesh but sounded like metal. There were dozens of them, but he was being overwhelmed. Sach had contacts check the area, but saw no trace of the attack -or the scores of pig-things Xalmas allegedly defeated. Sach believes that Tandy hallucinated the entire scenario due to their drug binge.

After Tandy returned, screaming and babbling about Xalmas being taken or killed by monsters, he locked her up till she became sober and interrogated her. He was furious that she had potentially lost one of his best customers, but even more afraid of the potential consequences.  Gravespawn prostitution is illegal in Skein (though rarely enforced in the Ebon Ward), but the consequences of pimping one to a noble would be terrible -especially in the current climate-especially if the ghilan prostitute was the last one seen with the missing noble. That kind of attention could bring a terrible crackdown on his entire operation. Even the hint of that kind of attention might cause the Orchid-Eaters to proactively wipe their hands clean of him (and wipe him out). Consequently, he kept Tandy locked up, drugged all other witnesses, and spent the past days trying to wring additional information out of her, hoping fervently that Xalmas would turn up, either alive or dead in some other part of the city.

As for the Watch's records, House Rasch-Lurot had Tandy's name stricken from the records. If word got out that he was involved in 'necrophilia', the scandal would be tremendous, and tarnish the family name for years -and investors would likely abandon the Night-Marrow merchant company and flock to their competitors. At the time, they likely believed -as did Sach- that Xalmas was just missing and would show up in a day or so.  

At this point, Sachs believes that Xalmas may have died from an overdose, or perhaps an interaction between the asherat and thrum. But he isn't sure, and as far as he knows, the body hasn't shown up (though he believes House Rasch-Lurot might have covered that up too).

During the 'confession' Catena would have had time to store the vial. She isn't sure what it is, but there is some pressurized vapor inside, that is likely not too nice to people caught in its blast.[/ooc]  

[ic]Catena grunts and seizes Dr. Sacheverell, hurling him bodily into the forms of the incoming thugs. She whips out her slim dagger and leaps forward, ready to jam the weapon into the throat, eye-socket, or temple of anyone still on their feet.[/ic]

[ooc]Catena enters Bloodlust. She applies a level of Grit to both rolls (reducing the cost to 0 with her 2 Edge points):

Throwing the good doctor: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Dagger: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Dr. Sachs gives a watery shout of shock, then pain, as he bowls over the first on-rushing thug. The other goons scatter awkwardly in the cramped chamber. As the second thug fumbles with his footing, Catena's dagger finds his throat. As the blade withdraws, the man flails pitifully, too preoccupied by drowning in his own blood to pose a threat. Meanwhile, the third thug closes and tries to clobber Catena's skull with his nail-studded truncheon. The clumsy strike is predictable -and invites a merciless riposte.[/ic]

[ooc]With your modifiers, you automatically can succeed on the Agility defense roll. Alternatively, you can roll, and risk the 1 for the potential benefit of getting a 5 or 6.[/ooc] 

[ic]Catena ducks the truncheon, her dagger flickering towards the thug's face.[/ic]

[ooc]Again, applying a level of Grit for free:

Agility roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Attack: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The blade sinks hilt-deep into the thug's face, shattering cartilage and bone in a gore splatter. Horrified by the nigh-effortless slaughter, the sole surviving goon detangles from Dr. Sachs and scrambles to the door.

Sacheverell, meanwhile, fumbles with his apron's pockets. Cracks in his mask, however, obscure his sight. He curses desperately, causing the fracturing apparatus to weakly hiss and drool.[/ic]

[ooc]Prone and half-blinded, the 'doctor' is a DC 1 to hit.[/ooc]  

[ic]Catena allows herself the ghost of a satisfied smirk, then sinks her knife into the doctor's back.[/ic]

[ooc]Attack on the doctor: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Sacheverell screams as the unseen blade slips between his ribs. As his squeal turns to a dying gurgle, the mask's drool blushes a vivid incarnadine.

Three corpses surround Catena like ill-stacked lumber. Their sap clings to her blade.

The hallway -as if awed by the butchery- is quiet.[/ic]

[ooc]The Bloodletter is doubtlessly pleased (even if impossible to fully appease). For 'discovering' Sach's/Tandy's secrets about Xalmas, you gain 3 XP. By my reckoning, that puts you at 4, which you can spend to gain a benefit en route to advancing your tier. You can pick one now or later. Either way, your move.[/ooc]  

[ic]Catena flicks her blade clean and sheathes it, then draws her hand-crossbow. Keeping it ready in one hand and aimed generally toward the doorway, she rapidly checks the dead doctor's apron for whatever it was he was clutching at in the moments before his death, then takes a quick glance about for any other objects of note in the room - particularly any valuable drugs or similar substances, but also anything significant Tandy might have left behind.[/ic]

[ooc]Catena will use her benefit to Increase Capabilities, adding 2 points to her Might Pool and 2 points to her Agility Pool. Her current Pools look like this, following these increases (I'm assuming the increases are added to my current totals):

Pools: Might 10/15, Agility 11/14, Intellect 3/7[/ooc]

[ooc]Aye, that's how it works. Regarding Catena's search of the chamber, please give me a perception check (Intellect-based).[/ooc]

[ooc]Perception check: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Catena's search uncovers a litany of past violences and potentially useful curios.

Behind Tandy's soiled bed and burst manacles, a nightstand's wreckage turns up a pile of cigarette butts, syringes, and a shot-up phonautograph. Although most of the clockwork apparatus is broken, its lampblack barrel –with its inscrutable recording- is mostly salvageable.

Searching the thugs, Catena finds a few crowns; a stack of counterfeit opera tickets, and a warm, sticky nodule that resembles a ruby gallstone.

Sacheverell's pockets, however, are more generous. Rummaging through the slurry of broken phials, Catena discovers an ampule labeled as tar-baby blood; a scrimshaw skeleton-key; a makeshift bottle terrarium that contains a single, vibrant-yellow mushroom; a ceramic vial of demon-possessed black bile; a well-leafed pamphlet of smutty woodblock illustrations; a damp newsrag containing two large, dried, half-opened purple flowers, so dark they're almost black, the bulbs still pliant and fresh; a greasy specimen-bottle full of some manner of ichor; a glyph-sealed glass pot of dark blue dye; a pressurized flask of incandescent spores; and a fastidiously penned field journal. [/ic]

[ooc]Catena automatically identifies the phonautograph, as her first slavemaster had one; she loved to record the sounds of different species thrashing and being eaten in her pet-spider's web. Catena can't read the mostly-intact recording, but a specialist might be able to decipher it (or convert it back into sound).

With an Intellect check, Catena is able to identify other items, with the number depending on her roll:

DC 2:
[spoiler]The nodule is a crystalized version of Scarlett Bliss that Sachs was experimenting with. They key is to the Stallion.
When in darkness, the yellow fungus thrums, causing the glass container to vibrate with an eerie song. [/spoiler]

DC 3:
[spoiler]Tar-baby blood is a level 4 poison that hyper-coagulates blood via injection or injury.
The pamphlet contains miniscule marginalia noting secrets about each slattern's regular customers: their peccadillos, past indiscretions, etc.[/spoiler]

DC 4:
[spoiler]Imbibing the fiend-bound bile will induce melancholia, but grant you certain insights and limited witchcraft.
The bulbs and blossoms are from a rare strain of asherat.
The greasy bottle contains 3 doses of venom extracted from a vermillion orb weaver (level 2, 5 damage)[/spoiler]

DC 5:
[spoiler]When unsealed, the pot's substance acts like pheromones for dreamspawn, attracting them and/or potentially distracting them.
The pressurized vial contains enucleation spores (level 4 poison, causes temporary blindness to exposed eyes and debilitating pain that infamously causes victims to gouge out their own eyes).[/spoiler]

DC 6:
[spoiler]You break Sach's cypher and can read his field journal, which contains detailed notes about his experiments, such as the progressive and synergistic effects of certain drugs and toxins as well as proposed methods to reverse engineer Cerulean Bliss. Overall, it grants a +1 bonus to botany, toxicology, and related tasks.[/spoiler][/ooc]

[ooc]Intellect check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]Gathering the more valuable items hastily - the crowns, ampule, skeleon-key, bottle, ceramic vial, flowers, specimen-botle, pot, flask, and field journal - Catena pokes her head down the corridor, ensuring that the coast is clear. Time to get out of this place.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]The corridor is strangely still. Down below, the chaos and crackle of flames roar unabated, but the hallway is quiet. Several doors, once sealed, stand ajar -their split frames revealing bizarre, pungent scenes that mix botanical interrogation and fetishism. Inside one, a fettered castrato sways, his skull and face surgically replaced by a giant orchid-blossom. Further down, a series of waxy topiaries have been pruned into various erotica.

At the corridor's end, the stairway beckons. Smoke -and the scent of burnt flesh and ethanol- drift up the flyposted walls. Looking up, Catena spots the fleeing skirts of some wag-tails. A less-than sober patron sits slumped in the stairwell.[/ic] 

[ic]Alisandre grits her teeth as the weight of the demon's sanity-rending presence crushes against her wards. Blood dribbles from her nose, pat-pat-pattering onto the grimoire's rapidly expanding fungus. Her visions blurs in and out of focus, such that she barely registers the Horned Enuch consuming its ghastly meal. As her fingers dart across the tome's squirming pages and her mind races with arcane formulae, she asks in a hard voice,

"What is the greatest weakness of Symos Mei-Vourne?"[/ic]

[ooc]Spending 1 grit. I also recall from our months-ago chat that questions motivated by envy/jealousy got a +2 bonus? Well, she's pretty dang envious of the dude.

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+3 : 2 + 3, total 5[/blockquote]

Pools: Pools: Might 6/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 8/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre's query draws an audible gasp from one of the diabolists -and a terrifying guffaw from the arch-demon as it excretes another slime-covered egg.

The necromancer, however, has little time to regard either as she braces for the implacable assault. As her lips complete the final arcane syllable, the tome violently decomposes into a swirl of spores. The hungry cloud invades her mouth and nose. It blinds her, covering every inch of exposed skin, burrowing through her clothes. The spores attempt to penetrate her, to join her. Their embrace is both consumptive and transformative, enticing and horrifying. To fight against the transmogrification would be madness...[/ic]

[ooc]Glad to have you back, FE. And yes, you recalled correctly about the +2 bonus. You succeeded in obtaining your answer (or egg with the answer). Now, you must see if you survive to learn/employ it.

Make a Might save.

Also, make a Perception check (Intellect-based) to identify which diabolist gasped at your question.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena makes her way rapidly along the corridor to the stairs, eyes twitching this way and that with half-feral alertness, her crossbow still in hand. Anything that seems aggressive will get a quarrel to the guts.[/ic]

[ic]...but madness or no, the alternative is far worse. Alisandre gags as the fungal spores enter her, yet she strains to remember that she is a Mei-Vourne, that she is a caretaker of the sacred dead, one ennobled through blood and duty alike, and more than this basest of opisthokonts...[/ic]

[ooc]Might save, spending 1 grit:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+1 : 4 + 1, total 5[/blockquote]

Perception check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Pools: Pools: Might 4/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 8/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Catena]The smoke-threaded stairwell thrums with the jostle of ascending feet. Half-dressed patrons and prostitutes flee to the higher floors, coughing and clamoring in confusion and simmering panic. In the hazy gloom, the scene reminds Catena of her slave-pit origins, but the echoes and scents are off, too-refined, too-articulate. Too passive. No one harasses the bolt-touting mercenary.  

At least, not until she reaches the fifth floor.

"Draukyr's hoary muzzle! Get yer crab-faced molly-rag o'er here!"

Titus barks at her from the fifth-floor's corridor, its previously barred entrance melted by some kind of caustic slime. The button-eyed sailor strains as he half-hefts, half-drags a copper still across the mossy carpet. A blood-soaked petticoat has been wrapped around his bum as a makeshift bandage. He grunts.

"Well, fish-brains?! Ye gonna just gawk with 'em ratty deadlights or are ye gonna help me get 'dis thrice-shelled grog-pot to me walker. It's sunken just outside tha' window. I'll give ye a ride -and e'en consider the spine-fingered barker bygone. Or, ye can run like sharkshat till the gas-pipes blow like a sixteen-cannon salute!?"[/ic]

[ooc]If you decide to hustle to the top and down the fire-escape, make an Agility check. If you decide to help Titus, make a Might check.[/ooc]

[ic]Catena grunts and holsters her crossbow, then hurries to help Titus with the huge still, suppressing a sigh of exasperation.[/ic]

[ooc]Might check, applying one level of Grit:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Pools: Pools: Might 9/15, Agility 11/14, Intellect 3/7[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]Alisandre overcomes the transmogrifying assault.

Between terrible spasms of wracking coughs and spore-filled drool, Alisandre gnashes out the diabolic benediction, simultaneously banishing Succorbenoth and denying the archdemon its final sacrifice -herself. The se'irim screams like a petulant child -though its cacophony causes the very air to shudder and bleed. With a noisome quiver, the paraphysical womb re-opens and swallows the Horned Eunuch with a sickly slurp, silencing the fiend's sanity-crumbling echoes. In the aftermath of Hell's exorcism, pipes and canisters hiss and boil. Colors and gravity stabilize as reality stitches itself back together.

And in the middle of the spent hexagram, six viridian eggs gleam with slime-shelled secrets.

While most of the diabolists struggle to regain their metaphysical footing, one robed figure shouts a command in Morbis. In response, something detaches from the the venous-tubed ceiling and drops to the floor with the scuttle of bone and metal.

A necromechanoid.

Even in the incarnadine gloom, the elegant construction of the spidery juggernaut is evident: a half-dozen corpses neatly joined together by twisted machinery and animated by dark thaumaturgy. Eight human arms support its necrotic bulk, and a rotating, many-barrelled gun dangles from its thorax. Its head is human, but a naphtha-thrower bursts from its preserved lips like some obscene, murderous tongue, and its eyes have been replaced with glass lenses. Heat and flames flicker in its articulated throat.[/ic]

[ooc]Make an initiative roll (Agility-based). You might as well make an Agility-defense roll 'just in case'. Finally, make a perception roll (Intellect).

Congrats on not becoming a quivering pile of hellmould. :)  [/ooc]

[ic=Catena]Together, Catena and Titus easily heft the monstrously heavy still. They carry it across a half-ransacked office, then attach it to a nest of magnetic cables and clamps that dangle down from a battered-open window. Sweat drips down Titus' blood-blanched face as he checks the lines and cinches them tight with a heavy crank.  

"Anchorgut job," he murmurs weakly.

Steadying himself against the smashed lintel, Titus points up and out the window. Following his gaze, Catena spots Titus' 'walker'. The ten-legged contraption -formed of barnacle-studded chitin, leather, and galvanized steel- resembles a giant crayfish. It clutches the roof's lip and wall, surprisingly camouflaged and stable against the Stallion's brick exterior.

Titus smiles, "She's from the War. Since it ended, she wasn't gettin' no loadin', so I crimped her, fair and dry."

His smile fades, however, as he grabs a rope ladder and laboriously climbs, his petticoat-bandage shifting painfully and dripping fresh blood. Reaching the soon-to-be cramped cockpit, Titus wearily grunts, "C'mon, crabmeat."

As Catena climbs the swaying rope and wedges herself behind the sailor, Titus maneuvers a litany of levers, drawing the cables and cargo into the walker's articulated 'tail'. Yanking another level, and spinning a well-greased wheel, he closes the cockpit and begins to pilot the vehicle via a host of gauges and glass-portholes. Steam-boilers roar to life, and the giant cray-machine begins to slowly half-scamper, half-slide down the wall. Dust and sparks fill the air, and the cockpit rattles like an enraged demon.

"And by... Shuddegoth's scaly cannonballs... keep yer eelish... pincers... to yerself," he grumbles between painful jolts.  

No sooner said, a terrible sound cuts through the air.

"What'd I tell-" Titus shouts, only to look back and curse, "-Basatan's meaty cakes!". Glancing back herself, Catena watches as the Stallion's gas-pipes catch, triggering a chain-reaction that savages the drug-dealing brothel. Five stories of windows burst into a storm of shrapnel and fire.

As the explosions try to throw the walker from the wall -and subsequently shred it with a shower of glass and burning metal, Titus frenetically turns, yanks, and spins a prolix combination of devices. Screeching in protest, the walker violently leaps the last story, off and away from the burning building and falling flack.

The walker lands with a hard -but not lethal- stop. Steam hisses as hydraulic pistons catch and carry the apparatus' weight.

Wincing at the less-than-graceful landing, Titus checks on Catena, then curses as he spots his blood-sopped seat. He murmurs to no one in particular, "Hagfaced gods, that was too grog-washed close."

Gingerly testing a few levers and gauges, Titus taps one sinking dial and sighs, "That briny dance cost us nearly all her powder, but I can get her limpin' someplace scaly. Radula's close, but ye can shove-off now if ye want."

Behind them, klaxons sound. The greasy cul-de-sac is a flurry of movement. Dazed boatmen rush out of the adjacent hostel, groggy and clutching their ears. Passers-by gather and stare. A few, brave roustabouts rush to the inferno-wracked fire-escape to check for survivors.  Overhead, an ornithopter soars into view, its edges backlit by an elytric blue spotlight that sweeps over the dying conflagration.[/ic]

[ooc]Make a Might defense roll (DC 2 for you) or take 2 points of Might damage, after Armor, from the jostle/fall/landing.[/ooc]

[ic]Even as one crisis boils over into another, Alisandre cannot help but feel a surge of vindication--someone did not want her to see that egg's contents. Its knowledge was valuable. And it would be hers.[/ic]

[ooc]Initiative:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Defense:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote]

Perception:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 4/8 (0), Agility 6/11 (1), Intellect 8/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The other diabolists curse at their treacherous peer, though only half of them have the celerity to invoke a protective hex. While one summons a cocoon of translucent slime, another diabolist scratches open a scabbed wrist, creating sanguine rivulets that momentarily form a goetic seal. From that bloody sigil, a horde of malformed imps burst -flinging themselves out of the witch's arteries in a gory torrent. Meanwhile, the traitor stabs a finger at Alisandre and shouts another Morbis-spoken command -in a high-pitched voice whose Somnambulon accent is all-too familiar to Alisandre.

The traitor is none other than Symos' wife, Lenora Mei-Vourne, formerly of House Gervais of New Gromlech. 

Alisandre has little time to savor this revelation, however, as the necromechanoid scuttles to cut-off the ex-magistra from her egg. Simultaneously, its necrotic head swivels in a staccato motion, its naphtha-thrower vomiting a gout of flame that incinerates the nearest diabolist, burns through the other's slime-cocoon, and catches Alisandre's clothes on fire. Her nostrils fill with the stench of her own burning hair and flesh. As Lenora rushes to collect her -and Alisandre's- egg, the necromechanoid's gatling gun fires -cutting down another diabolist and savaging the swarm of imps.[/ic]

[ooc]You take 5 points of damage -which drops you down the health track -so you now take a -1 to all rolls and cannot spend Might points. The necromechanoid is blocking your path. Lenora is almost to the eggs.

Alisandre would know that this is a really devious treachery, as all of the diabolists had to disrobe all their clothing and items save the ritualistic garb, depriving them of many protections -which are especially important since diabolistic invocations generally require time and preparation. That one could summon a swarm of imps so swiftly is impressive. Whether they can survive/defeat a necromechanoid is another matter.[/ooc]

[ooc]Might check for Catena:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]So Catena weathers the battering without any injury. Tough as nails, she is. Now, just let me know, either IC or OOC, how she responds (e.g., does she gets off/out now, along the way, or ride with Titus to whatever river hideout he's going to).[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre cannot suppress a scream at the all-too familiar--and no less terrible--sensation of being roasted alive. Even as she franatically bats at her burning garments, she attempts to harness her pain, her fury, to direct it against this latest family member who would see her consigned to the flames.

The nigromancer hisses out a string of arcane syllables in Morbis and spectral demonic forms hungrily race towards the fallen diabolists, their grinning maws spread wide as if anticipating a savory meal. The corpses glow with fell red light, then abruptly lurch to their feet. The first one falls upon the necromechanoid, mindlessly kicking, biting, and battering at the construct with abandon that only a dead man could possess. Meanwhile, the second zombie jerkily ambles after Alisandre's sister-in-law, sizzling chunks of flesh still sloughing off from its blackened torso. Its arms are spread wide as if to embrace its mistress' kinswoman.[/ic]

[ooc]Spending 3 Intellect on the two zombies.

Zombie 1's attack vs. the necromechanoid, 2 dmg if it hits:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Zombie 2's grapple vs Lenora:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 0/8 (0), Agility 5/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The bullet-riddled zombie catches the necromechanoid completely off-guard. It neither dodges nor blocks the servitor's attacks. It is as if the spidery automaton's programming cannot process, much less counter, the grave-spawn. Without care or awareness of this datum, the zombie brutally tears into the juggernaut's thorax. Its still-warm hands clutch and rip apart dead sinews and stitched cables, causing the necromechanoid's gun to sway and totter precariously. The gatling's shots fall high and wide, ricocheting against the chamber's walls and ceilings. Chymicals spray and spurt from punctured tubes and tanks, making the floor ever more slick and noisome.

Caught in the loathsome spray, the immolated zombie steams and hisses as it pursues Lenora. The traitorous noblewoman, however, evades its embrace and picks up both eggs, cradling them softly in her robes. She shouts another string of commands in Corpserattle and begins to flee. Obedient to its mistress' order, the necromechanoid crawls after her, then halts, its bulk blocking Lenora's living pursuers.

In response, the slime-cocooned witch rushes into the violated hexagram and seizes an egg. Eyeing the other diabolists, he shouts, "Memory is long, but mortality is short," then utters a hex that transforms his body and possessions into a pool of motile sludge. His amorphous-mass oozes away from the battle, mingling with the leaking reagents.  

The imp-shrouded diabolist, however, attempts to strike back at Lenora. A half-dozen fiendlings flit over and through the necromechanoid's legs. Those that survive the gambit fall upon Lenora, snatching, scratching, and snapping at her with their grotesque appendages and maws. Another group of imps protectively surround the remaining eggs. The diabolist -no longer shielded by the demonic flock- performs a byzantine invocation that freezes the air around the necromechanoid. Frost begins to gather and grow around the thing's head, till its face and barreled lips are entombed in a block of stygian ice.  

Meanwhile, flames continue to hungrily lick at Alisandre's skin and naphtha-charred raiment. The odor, heat, and agony awaken nightmarish memories long-buried, but never put to rest.[/ic]

[ooc]As noted, Alisandre's clothes are on fire, and will continue to burn her until put out. She takes 2 more Damage this round. Due to the general pain and distraction  and her specific trauma with fire, make an Intellect defense roll 4. If you succeed, you can act normally (with the -1 of course). Otherwise, you must spend your round dousing the flames, or attempting to.

Also, make an Intellect-based perception check. If you pass a DC 3, you also note the programming flaw in the necromechanoid.

If you move, make a DC 2 agility check to keep your footing, since there is a growing amount of blood and chemicals on the floor.[/ooc]

[ooc]Intellect check on the necromechanoid:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]Intellect check vs. fire:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 5 - 1, total 4[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ic]The agony of Alisandre's cooking flesh is no less terrible than the first time, the flames' kiss no less cruel--but the fires of her hatred burn hotter still. The necromancer snarls an invocation through blistered lips, and a swarm of buzzing flies and squirming spectral maggot hurtles towards the necromechanoid, their probosci veritably twitching with delight over so copious a supply of flesh to gorge themselves upon.

No sooner is her hex uttered than Alisandre barks out commands in Morbis for her necrotic servants to bring her sister-in-law to her--alive. The zombies squeeze themselves under the legs of the faulty construct that remains oblivious to their presence, and descend upon Lenora in a mindless flail of chymical-slick arms.[/ic]

[ooc]Grave's call on the necromechanoid, 4 dmg if I hit: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 6 - 1, total 5[/blockquote]

Zombie 1 footing roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Zombie 1 grapple roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Zombie 2 footing roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 5, total 5[/blockquote]

Zombie 2 footing roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

If zombie #1 succeeds on the grapple roll, zombie #2 attacks Lenora instead. 2 points of dmg if it hits, with the intent to knock her out.

Pools: Might 0/8 (0), Agility 3/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The hex-maggots burrow into the necromechanoid's sutured flesh. One punctures a synthetic-piped artery, unleashing a torrent of foul-smelling embalming fluid, theosophical reagents, and motor oil. Within seconds, desiccated pistons seize, gears shriek, and half the juggernaut's limbs fold like deflated accordions. The remaining limbs struggle to support the necromechanoid's weight while dumbly flailing against the gnashing imps.

Undeterred by the rising slurry, Alisandre's zombic vassals bear down on their murderer. The first snatches her robe, but the rite-frayed garment rips. Lenora stumbles away, deeper into the corridor. Her shouts echo wildly with averted pain and perceived triumph. Her victory is short-lived, however, as the second zombie slams into her and carries her to the ground with a bone-snapping thud. Lenora's arrogance is instantly silenced by her agony.  

Behind Alisandre, the tanks continue to leak their incarnadine chymicals. Sensors flicker as reservoir levels drop. Ear-splitting klaxons begin to erupt.

Wincing at the deafening cacophony, the remaining diabolist pushes back his stained sleeve and begins drawing elaborate sigils with his half-clotted blood. His veiled eyes glow like burning honey as he completes his semiotic diagrams. The sanguine invocation recalls his imp-horde. The surviving fiends -including those clutching the last three eggs- are violently sucked back into his body. His body rapidly bloats with the diabolic ingress, and he eerily groans as bones shift, skin stretches, and organs bend under the corpulent strain.

Once more an obese, lumpy mass, the witch lumbers weakly to the still-burning Alisandre. He reflexively snuffs the flames with an off-hand hex, asphyxiating the flames with an ephemeral, pangeometric gate. He shouts, gesturing to the alarms, "The Manciple-Guard, they'll be upon us!"[/ic]    

[ooc]The necromechanoid is largely, but not wholly, disabled. It is still blocking the corridor -and its huge, flailing limbs could squash a lesser magistra. If you try to pass, you need to make an Agility defense roll (5 = no damage, 4 = you pass but get damaged, 3 or less = you take damage and don't get passed). It is also blocking your vision -but you're pretty sure that Lenora is down and grappled -and likely lame.

You also take another 2 points of fire damage from the prior round.

Additionally, make an Intellect check, perception-based.

Finally, those were some nice rolls.

EDIT: Alisandre would know that the Manciple-Guard are the group of alchemist-engineers that procure, tend, and guard the Towers' alchemical 'food' and network of pipes.  [/ooc]  

[ooc]Perception check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]Alisandre's senses squirm and wince. Beyond the distracting pain of her burnt body, the lighting is schizophrenic with the leaking, splashing alchemical phosphorescence; vanishing flames; and flashing alarms. Moreover, the re-absorbing of the imp-hoard, shouting, and flailing necromechanoid make it all-but impossible for her to make out what is happening in the corridor. To alter the zombies' orders, she will need to get past the necromechanoid and into the corridor. Otherwise, they will continue there last orders (grapple), or she can tell them to do a task that does not require sit (i.e., stop). [/ooc]

[ic]"Then we must... clear a path before they arrive," Alisandre hisses, her breath hoarse, ragged, and partly choked with relief over her now-extinguished state. Smoke rises from her scorched and blackened garments, and her flesh is in little better condition. The nigromancer wills her fading vision into focus as she calls,

"Target that thing's limbs!"

With several rapid Morbic intonations and forceful gestures, Alisandre sends a spout of black flames, greasy and foul-smelling as corpse-ichor, flying towards the construct's still-functional limbs. A faint, soft hiss sounds as the hex streaks towards its target, like gas released from a rotting cadaver.[/ic]

[ooc]Targeting the limbs with grave's call per our earlier discussion: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 1 - 1, total 0[/blockquote]

Zombie 1 footing roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Zombie 1 grapple roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 6, total 6[/blockquote]

Zombie 2 footing roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 2, total 2[/blockquote]

Zombie 2 grapple roll: [blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1[/blockquote]

Pools: Might 0/8 (0), Agility 1/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)

Looking over the health rules, should Alisandre have had a beneficial effect occur with her last 6 (being as she was/still is impaired)?[/ooc]

[ic=Alisandre]The necromantrix' hissing flames streak towards the injured construct -but the hex-fire reacts unexpectedly with the automaton's eso-alchemical vitae. To Alisandre's shock, the eldritch flames violently ignite the arterial oil-spill that surrounds the construct. Air and ichor alike erupt into a greasy fireball and keening shockwave!

Tubes and tanks burst. Glass and foetid fluids shower the living. The corpulent witch is thrown back, a seven-horned imp seeping from his reopened wrist. The chamber shakes with an epileptic fury. The klaxons continue their relentless cries. [/ic]

[ooc]Make an Agility defense roll. Also, make a Might defense roll (DC 3) to avoid being deafened by the blast. I'll ten describe what she sees/experiences depending on that reactive roll.[/ooc]  

[ic]Catena hops down from the mechanical walker with a grunt.

"I consider us even. I hope you feel the same." She brushes herself off and sets out in the direction of the corroded industrial husks and seeping cesspits of the Black Souse Tarnish.[/ic]

[ic=Catena]Titus silently watches Catena's descent with his beady button-eyes. At her words, the riparian grifter snorts:

"Ye got powder, Catena, I'll give ye that. If ye need someplace scaly to shell up, go to the docks and ask for the Selkie's Armoire -tell 'em the Haberdasher sent ye."

Bidding the albino farewell with a jaunty salute, Titus returns to his gears. He spurs the cray-machine forward, and away from the roving searchlight.

Catena's path quickly diverges. The Ebon Ward -and the Tarnish within- awaits.[/ic]

[ooc]Make an Intellect check DC 2 to know where the Tarnish is. If you fail, you will find it, but the journey will take a little longer (backtracking, roughing up directions, etc.). Speaking of time, if you find a place to hole up (either a 'proper' flophouse or abandoned buildings), you can take your 4th rest if you wish. Either way, would you please update your character sheet (i.e., add your benefit selected, pool increase, and items gained)?
[/ooc]

[ic]Alisandre hisses, jerking an arm across her face to avoid being blinded by the chymical shower. But the worst was surely still to come...[/ic]

[ooc]Agility:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 1 - 1, total 0[/blockquote]

Might:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6-1 : 4 - 1, total 3[/blockquote][/ooc]

[ooc]As endlessly entertaining as I'm sure two successive 1s would be for you to narrate... spending my remaining 1 XP on a reroll.

(http://www.thecbg.org/Themes/SilverPluss1/images/dice_warn.gif) This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6-1 : 3 - 1, total 2

Pools: Might 0/8 (0), Agility 1/11 (1), Intellect 5/17 (1)[/ooc]

[ooc]Updated my sheet. (http://www.thecbg.org/index.php/topic,210066.msg227243.html#msg227243)

Intellect check:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6 : 4, total 4[/blockquote]

Catena will look for an abandoned building to hole up in as well and make her fourth recovery roll if she finds one:

[blockquote]Rolled 1d6+2 : 5 + 2, total 7[/blockquote][/ooc]