Clockwork Abattoir: Sordid Tales

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[False Epiphany]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[False Epiphany]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[False Epiphany]

[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.

This dice roll has been tampered with!
Rolled 1d6 : 3, total 3[/ooc]

[False Epiphany]

[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]

[Steerpike]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[Steerpike]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[Steerpike]

[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]

[Rose-of-Vellum]

[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]

[Steerpike]

[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]