The Campaign Builder's Guild

[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:
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]