The Campaign Builder's Guild

[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.

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.

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.

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]