For the moment, a story about one particular mortal in the world of Exalted. Amid a world of murderers and mystics, one Investigator struggles to solve an impossible crime.
The voices of your ancestors chant in your ears, a steady drone that's replaced the screams of the dying all around you.
You can hear the thump of your heartbeat as you draw strength from the chant of voices past. Your sweaty palm holds fast on the old sword's grip and you flourish the blade.
You can hear the world's heartbeat rise up through your legs as you plant your feet and get ready to make a stand.
You can hear every heart in all Creation beat in time with yours as you face down this massive creature, one lone brave figure against a monstrous beast. A tale told to you before you even knew that monsters truly walked this world, your place in it unknown until this very moment. It might have the strength of ten men and the cunning of point three three, but your destiny is clear now, everything in your life has led to this. You cannot fail.
It lunges at you, and calling upon all your skill and luck you drive your blade squarely through its paw and thick, hot blood pours down to bathe your outstretched arm. Your strength surges! You can almost hear a song being played in your honor-
Then, to your horror, the beast waves its stuck paw and with unstoppable strength wrenches the sword clear from your grasp. Time seems to slow down as its other paw swats you to the ground and ice floods your veins as it presses and crushes your ribs. Then it opens its mouth, wide, wide, wide, and you feel the prick of its teeth as they sink into your neck, and the last thing you hear is the sickening SNAP of tendon and bone.
And somewhere, a world and a half away, a spider plucking on the threads of Fate swears.
"Okay," it says, holding the end of where your thread was cut off and letting it fall, "maybe if we try..."
-----
You ever notice how Exalted stories all start with some absolute mad lad doing something heroic and reckless and getting away with it? How someone does something so mind-bogglingly courageous that the universe awards him superpowers? How the doomed last stand always ends with golden light and a victory plucked from the jaws of defeat?
The default premise, the default start of Exalted is that you tried something so absolutely incredible that the King of the Gods declared you one of his champions, with all the demigod-power that comes with that. If you're a person like me, you might wonder, "hey, wait, that's an immense survivorship bias. What happens to everyone else? You know, the ones who try something absolutely incredible and the King of the Gods just happens to be busy that day? What happens to them?"
Let's pour out a glass for that everyone else. A co-QM Quest with myself and MostlyPremier, this is a quest about the ones who fought against impossible odds and realized, to their surprise, that the impossible odds really were impossible. The ones who survived incredible hardships and as a reward got to survive incredible hardships. The ones who felt their whole life and destiny were leading them to a certain moment and turned out to be wrong, sometimes fatally.
In short, this is a story about people who play the lottery and lose.
But. Although you are a doomed mortal in a world of magic and mystery far larger than you, the threads of Fate are intertwined. If you die gloriously holding the line, you choose the next poor fool to man the barricades - and they'll get some benefit, some perk, some thread to pick that might let them achieve with the blood and lives of others what they could not on own. Oh, and you'll still be a total badass - if you were the type to sit around drinking wine, you'd be overthrown in short order. The world of Creation needs no slackers.
A note from the future! Hello, new people! If you're lost on the plot or just want to skip ahead, you can visit The Case so Far! (spoiler: they chose the Investigator, which means this is a mystery plot). It contains a summary of the investigation and the factions and side characters involved. Currently it covers everything from the Prologue to the end of Night 4, so there may be some reading after that point to keep up.
So, weavers of Fate, let's begin. Who are you?
[ ] - The Scarred Veteran's Bitter Harvest.
You come from good, honest stock from the most good and honest people in the whole world. Wanting to serve your country, you enlisted in the Legions, and had a distinguished, terrifying and above all short career on the front lines. A crippling injury (or two, or seven) sent you home, but one brave action meant you were sent home with enough money for your own farm and a chance at a new life. And once you could walk again and work again, you set to building exactly that.
Until an Imperial Magistrate decreed that one of your village had committed a terrible crime, and that everyone in it was to be evicted from their homes, stripped of all their rights, and cast out into the world with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The people of your nation are the most good and honest in the world - and because they are so good and honest, everyone who meets your band of refugees assumes you must deserve your fate. Although your scars remain, you still remember your skills as a Legionnaire - and you were a good soldier. How far will you fall to protect your own?
[ ] - The Sunscorned Exorcist Sheltering the Last Flame.
You have many titles. Priest. Shaman. Exorcist. The last is a new arrow in your quiver, but the spirits hadn't always been so rotten. The old bonds are falling apart, oaths have gone unanswered and prayers no longer spoken. The dead no longer seem to want to stay in the graves and salt has always been a precious tool of your trade, now your jars are starting to get empty.
Something has gone wrong and there's a sickness spreading among the spirits, one they're not able to see themselves, clawing its way into their souls. You had no formal training for your trade, only old stories, a few rare talks with gods and some advice from others who walk the same path but it's clear the faith of this place has grown frayed enough the whole tapestry is coming apart. Can you recover it before you unwinds it completely?
[ ] - The Antiquarian Artiste on the Edge of Ruin.
It's true that you have a taste for the finer things in life - but one of your genius has earned such luxury, fame, wealth and more! More, in this case, being inspiration from the relics of the past! A golden age of aesthetic finery lies beneath the ruins of Creation - oh, and some trinkets with (ugh!) practical uses too, but truly it was the architecture and artistry that resonates with your soul! No, some might think that the purpose of First Age relics and ruins is for plundering and building kingdoms with, but you? To you they are your muse!
Your patron has been tolerant of your whims before, but you've had a dire lack of inspiration of late and it has left you on rather thin ice. Not that you weren't already on thin ice - your work treads a thin line between art and heresy on your best day - but this is different. This time, if you don't find something that can help you produce new work, you'll be thrown into the street. You won't be satisfied with any thrown-together hack-work for your grand comeback, no. No, you need something bold, something brilliant, something dangerous. And for that, you'll need an awful lot of inspiration. Fortunately one of your sometimes-rivals has a lead on some very promising First Age inspiration...
[ ] - The Tireless Investigator Shackled by Law.
The sharp smell of firedust mingles with the cloying cheroot scent. The rain pours down outside like someone in Heaven kicked out all the cats and dogs at once. The lightning flashes, illuminating your face. You are a tireless sentinel, a watcher over the innocent, and you are so godsdamn gritty that carpenters could use you for sandpaper - if they could survive the experience.
But things aren't so simple on the dark side of humanity. Bodies are piling up like firewood ahead of the harvest festival - rich, poor, criminal. They've poured jade into investigators' outstretched hands and they've all bled it to the ground before they could even get the money dirty. It's not something you'd touch for all the wealth of the Isles if you had a choice. But as the people who tug at your collar well know, you don't.
[ ] - The Tattooed Sailor Just Looking For a Payday
The feeling of sea spray on your skin, the smell of salt in the air, the tingling along your arms that signals a storm coming. They're all part of why you got into this and you'll enjoy it while you can, but it's a lifestyle that runs on Jade. Owning a ship and a crew is expensive and potentially fatal if not paid for in a timely manner, being discerning about the cargo you take on is a luxury for those far more successful and connected than yourself. Instead you fill your hold with whatever people are willing to cross your palm with jade for and try to not think too hard about what causes it to rattle and shriek so.
So! In a bout of spectacular madness, we are actually using the Exalted 3e Storyteller system for our dice resolution in this Quest!
The basic mechanic is that depending on your amount of skill and aptitude at something, you get a certain number of d10s to roll to attempt to accrue Successes. On each d10, a result of 1-6 adds no Successes, a result of 7-9 adds one Success, and a result of 10 adds two Successes. So if you rolled eight dice to Investigate something (you'll be seeing that one a lot) and you roll 1,2,5,6,6,7,9,10, the result is four Successes. Is that good or bad?
Well! You generally want to meet a Difficulty, or if you don't the number of successes determines how well you succeed. The scale for mortals goes roughly as follows:
Difficulty 1 is Routine, a person who is in possession of some basic training can manage it on average, and literally anyone can accomplish it if they put in enough effort.
Difficulty 2 is Standard, a person who is normal for a human (a Creation human, people are just better on the Flat Earth) and of basic professional competence can pull it off on average.
Difficulty 3 is Difficult, a person who is well-suited to the task and actually quite good at their field will be able to pull this off on average.
Difficulty 4 is Challenging, a person who is one of the best in their field can manage it on average, but it takes a lot of luck for anyone less suited.
Difficulty 5 is Legendary, a person who is the best mortal in the world will only succeed on average.
The scale sort of breaks down when you get the Exalted involved, but that's an intended part of the game. Regardless, if our Investigator gets 4 successes in putting together some clues into a working theory, it's the sort of thing that an average detective would only accomplish about one time in ten. An exceptional insight, in other words.
But how do we get those dice in the first place? In Storyteller, they're divided into Attributes, which are broad abstractions of human aptitude (like Intelligence, or Charisma) and Abilities, which are more granular descriptions of human skill (like Linguistics, or Survival). And in most mortal circumstances, you just find the most appropriate combination and add them together. Surveying a crime scene might be Perception+Investigation, while cracking a codebook might be Intelligence+Linguistics. There's a certain amount of wiggle room and it's not a hard and fast rule what goes with what, so sometimes if a crime scene survey requires more analysis it'll be Intelligence+Investigation. That sort of thing!
Both of those statistics are measured in dot ratings from 1 to 5; They mean slightly different things for Attributes and Abilities because Attributes start at 1. For Attributes, 1 is minimum human aptitude, 2 is average, 3 means you're well suited for the work, 4 means you've got a real knack for it and 5 is the peak of humanity. For Abilities 1 is basic training, 2 is simple professional competence, 3 is expertise, 4 is being one of the elite, and 5 is the peak of human ability. So when you see that our Investigator has Intelligence 4, Investigation 4, she might well be one of the best mortal investigators in her region. By contrast you might see that she also has Strength 1, Athletics 3, which means that by nature she's poorly suited to physical pursuits, but has put a lot of work and effort into making up for that.
There are a lot of other values on the character sheet, but almost all of them are derived from some combination of Attribute and Ability. The ones that just have one number are called Static Values and derived from (Attribute+Ability)/2, representing an average result from that combination. Static Values are basically the Difficulty involved in contested rolls, when someone tries to act on you. Evasion, for instance, is what people trying to attack you test against if you're trying to dodge. If your Evasion is 4, they need to get 4 successes to hit you.
There are also Specialties, which tack onto an Ability and add one d10 in a much more specific domain. You might have Bureaucracy 3, representing that you're quite skilled at the business of paperwork, but a specialty in Laws, representing that you're even better at the documents-and-reasoning side of being a Lawyer.
Contested rolls happen when two people are trying to act upon the other and a Static Value wouldn't do instead. For instance, trying to hide while someone is looking out for threats is your Dexterity+Stealth vs their Perception+Awareness. The degree of success might matter narratively (barely getting spotted vs stumbling straight into their field of view), but overall whoever gets more successes just wins.
Battles are a whole thing and this'll get updated with an explanation of them later, but the overwhelming majority of the quest runs off this Attribute+Ability system.
There is one special case to the Attribute+Ability thing. If you roll the dice and get no successes, that means a failure (even if what you were trying was super easy). If you roll the dice and get no successes and also at least one of the dice rolled a 1, that's called a Botch. It's equivalent to a critical failure in other systems, and it means bad stuff happens.
A bit to explain what the numbers on the character sheet actually mean.
Attributes - a measurement of human aptitude, mostly. Can be increased but through a lot of time and painstaking effort (i.e. not in a Quest on this time scale)
Strength - Strength! Lifting things and how hard you hit.
Dexterity - Footwork, agility, and fine manipulation.
Stamina - General toughness
Charisma - convincing people of things with your earnestness! Making your intentions shine through and getting people to feel what you feel. Also used in rallying troops and summoning ghosts, because both of those involve getting people to feel things.
Manipulation - convincing people of things either with cold logic or cold, well, manipulation. Not technically the lies stat in that it can be used for other things, but lies go here.
Appearance - not necessarily how pretty you are, can also be how authoritative you look. Yes it's different from Charisma don't ask me how.
Wits - thinking on the fly! How good your gut-level, spine-reflex brain is. Good when you don't have time to think on things properly and for getting out of trouble.
Intelligence - thinking when you have time to think about things and mull them over. How good you are at analysis, detail and putting clues together.
Perception - if Wits and Intelligence are the quality of your fast and slow information processing, Perception is your information intake. Reading situations, crime scenes, people, all Perception.
Abilities - skills! Specific things you've trained to do.
Melee - fighting with melee weapons!
Brawl - fighting with fists!
Thrown - throwing knives and grenades and the like
Archery - using bows and, for some odd reason, flamethrowers
War - training and commanding troops
Integrity - resisting unnatural influences
Presence - convincing people of things
Performance - musical performances, prayers and public speaking. Used in Ghost Summoning because it's technically a prayer.
Resistance - toughness, but more specific than Stamina. Resisting poisons, food poisoning, toxins, diseases, that sort of thing.
Survival - roughing it out in the wilderness
Craft - building things
Lore - knowledge of the world and what lies in it
Occult - knowledge of the secret world of the supernatural (and the not-secret too).
Investigate - finding clues, scoping out bad guys, and generally being an Investigator
Medicine - all things medical. Patching up wounds, treating diseases, autopsying a body
Awareness - spotting things rather than people (unless those people are trying to hide)
Dodge - getting out of the way of things that want to do you harm
Stealth - sneaking about
Larceny - generalized skulduggery; disguises, sleight of hand, forging
Athletics - lifting, climbing, jumping, parkour'ing
Linguistics - all about writing; not only how good are you at it, but calligraphy and ciphers and the like. A character without dots in Linguistics is illiterate.
Ride - staying in the saddle when your horse would rather you didn't
Sail - surely guiding the helm of a ship
Socialise - not convincing people of things (that's Presence), but social awareness and keeping a poker face
Bureaucracy - the art of paperwork
Willpower - your general drive and determination. Your Permanent rating determines your maximum; you can use temporary points (Temp WP) from that to resist mental influence or use one point on any roll to gain one extra success, representing you putting your heart and soul into your endeavor. It's one of the few ways a mortal can deliberately increase their chances of success. It's also used to cast spells, but that won't come until later (if you pull it off). It's restored by accomplishing objectives in support of your passions, and by getting a good night's sleep.
Merits - a grab-bag of things that don't really fit under the ability+attribute paradigm, from supernatural mutations to criminal contacts (which should hopefully be fairly self-explanatory, you have contacts with criminals in the city of Gem)
Iron Stomach - gives +1 die to resisting disease or sickness as a result of eating something.
Fleet of Foot - gives +1 die to races, chases, and combat actions related to getting out of dodge.
Resources - your money! Rated from zero to five. Zero dots is basic subsistence, one dot (which we have) means we can live reasonably well and buy some nice things but not a lot of them; serious rich-people purchases will run us out of disposable income pretty much immediately ("this will temporarily exhaust your resource dot" is usually the language we use to describe something expensive enough to do that; restoring it tends to involve selling something). 5 dots is control of a large national economy. It's not a linear scale.
You were an urchin girl, malnourished in your youth, but now that you've made something of yourself it helps you know every street like the back of your hand. Your slight physique doesn't make you the most imposing lawhound, but you have a mind like a steel trap and a tongue to match. You've kept your hands by staying out of thieving personally but you know just where to find the most wonderful toys if needs be. Just make absolutely sure to never, ever get in anything resembling a fair fight. Or a marathon.
Normally you'd be finding lost people, or people that have gotten themselves lost, but when the merchant princes of the Guild lean on you to find out what's killed one of their favorites, they don't take no for an answer.
Sharell Zenteno
Attributes
Strength 1
Dexterity 3
Stamina 2
Charisma 2
Manipulation 3
Appearance 2
Wits 2
Intelligence 4
Perception 3
Skills
Melee
Brawl
Thrown 1
Archery 2 (+Slings)
War
Merits
Contacts 1 (Criminal Contacts - Gem)
Iron Stomach 1
Fleet of Foot 4
Resource 1
Gadgets 2 (Character may, within reason, claim to have a miniature form of existing equipment to hand. Equipment is one use per scene.)
Techniques
Summon Ghost - if a shade is known to you, it can be enticed to appear. Requires nighttime and a successful Charisma+Performance check. Difficulty can be reduced by making a suitable offering.
Lesser Ward (Ghosts) - laying down a salt line isn't a difficult task, but it takes practice to do it on the fly. With salt and an Intelligence+Occult check, create a barrier that ghosts cannot cross.
Special Equipment
Guild Favor - the greatest armor there is. The Guild owes you a favor.
Steals Kisses' Favor - redeemable for a free robbery.
The Spire - A card covered in arcane patterns with a central illustration depicting a monster bearing down on a man. Played face up it will give you a burst of speed; played face-down it will create a barrier that immobilizes people who get caught in it. The card disappears after being used once, but will eventually find its way back to the holder after it's passed through enough hands.
Softly Spoken - A subtle thread through your voice. As long as you keep talking, others have to listen.
Gold Lion Key - A golden key that doesn't dent as easily as normal gold. What does it unlock?
Bag of Salt - an Exorcist's best friend, and maybe an Investigator's salvation.
Dreamstones - you have (or have access to) several:
Red Stone 1 - Contains a dream of rooting out treachery through object reading, in this case a coin.
Red Stone 2 - Contains a dream of forging an army out of molten metal with your bare hands, and of rejecting a silver-lit lady who thinks that's a dumb idea.
Red Stone 3 - Contains a dream of building a device in the dark, alone and constantly surrounded by threats that never seem to quite materialize.
Red Stone 4 - ????
Makarios Stone - Can be used to contact the demon Makarios, the Sigil's Dreamer
Intimacies
If there's no law but what we make for ourselves, I'll make it myself (Defining)
Too clever by half (Major)
Let Justice be done, though the heavens fall (Major)
Runts should stick together (Minor)
A full belly makes everything better (Minor)
Ė̸̡n̷̟̫͝e̴̟̲͛̌m̸̡̩̓̂í̶̪ḙ̴̊s̴͔͕̔͐ ̸̩͈̑̌c̷̭͌ã̷̯n̸̠̳̈́ ̵̳́̚c̷̼̾̌o̷̥̓̓ḿ̷̥̟e̴̲̊ ̷̗̆̑f̶̡̘͛͘r̴̰͂͑ọ̷̲̀m̴̭͝ ̷͎͗a̵̛̹̳ń̶̘̀y̷̯͌w̴̧̲͆̈ḥ̵̢͂́è̷͔̖̃r̵̟͙̆e̴͓̓ ̷̺̬͌(̴̡̱́͝M̴̮̐̾i̷̮̎͝ṋ̵̥̌o̶̙͐ȓ̶̐͜)̴͖͂
Perks:
Remember to Duck (Minor) - You are better at getting out of the way of giant monsters. You didn't know this was a skill you needed, but since it's probably something you can only learn by doing, you're glad to have it. Even if you're not exactly sure how. Dodge Specialty: Giant Monsters
Fiat justitia ruat caelum. You're the Tireless Investigator Shackled by Law.
You're almost finished with your last smoke when it hits you. A wave of nausea wracks your body, and you feel the sharp prick of teeth around your throat. Pain blossoms across your chest and a breath catches in your throat. There's nowhere for it to go, sucking desperately for more won't let it seep down past that ball of pain in your gut. You feel like you're shouting but no sound is escaping your lips and the tang of blood in your mouth gets more intense until it's all you can think about.
And then, just like that, it's over. You're still in your office. Your smoke has burned down to a stub and as you look down at it you realize that what broke you out of this trance is the last embers of it starting to burn your fingertips. You fling it into the metal pan you keep for such a purpose and let out a long, slow breath. You knew this case was going to be a killer, but if it goes on like this it might start to drive you crazy.
(Legacy Perk Gained: Remember to Duck (Minor) - You are better at getting out of the way of giant monsters. You didn't know this was a skill you needed, but since it's probably something you can only learn by doing, you're glad to have it. Even if you're not exactly sure how. Dodge Specialty: Giant Monsters)
You stand, sucking at the start of a burn and hoping it won't blister too badly. Enough brooding - you're faced with the hard truth that you don't have enough information to crack this case yet, and that means getting back to what you do best. It might be coming down hard outside but that means the taverns and homes will be packed full and you'll have everything else to yourself.
You throw open your closet.
In it, next to your scarf and hat, is the most important accessory for any hard-boiled investigator: What does your coat look like?
(Pick one.)
[ ] - Small with lots of pockets. You are Sharell Zenteno.
You were an urchin girl, malnourished in your youth, but now that you've made something of yourself it helps you know every street like the back of your hand. Your slight physique doesn't make you the most imposing lawhound, but you have a mind like a steel trap and a tongue to match. You've kept your hands by staying out of thieving personally but you know just where to find the most wonderful toys if needs be. Just make absolutely sure to never, ever get in anything resembling a fair fight. Or a marathon.
Normally you'd be finding lost people, or people that have gotten themselves lost, but when the merchant princes of the Guild lean on you to find out what's killed one of their favorites, they don't take no for an answer.
(Primary: Mental
Secondary: Social
Tertiary: Physical
Fighting Style: Gadgets and Running Away
Perk: Criminal Connections - It's so much easier to find a criminal when you know his friends, and more importantly, his mother.
Weakness: Noodly smol)
[ ] - Large, tattered and stained. You are Bronzed Anvil.
Criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot, and your favourite pastime is punching them in the face. They say there's no honest lawmen left and maybe that's true, but no matter how often you've been tempted to cross that line you haven't yet. Instead you've a lifetime of learning the dirty brawling tricks of the streets and you have a body that would make a god cry foul. That's not to say you're a fool - anybody who expects a man with biceps like yours to be a meathead is in for a rude awakening but you've no skill with people. Talking just makes your fists itch.
You usually deal with gangs not murders, but when someone is killing lawmen then that makes it personal. The law is going to hit them like a ton of bricks.
(Primary: Physical
Secondary: Mental
Tertiary: Social
Fighting Style: Brawling and Toughing it Out
Perk: I am the Night! - Can get more information out of interrogations, as people are inexplicably eager to tell you things.
Weakness: Blending in)
[ ] - Thin and absolutely immaculate. You are Ten Feathers.
They say your father was a Prince, which is how you inherited feathered hair and features so angular they could cut glass. You cut an amazing figure in a long coat and you can disassemble and reassemble a man's mind with but a word. At least, that's what you tell yourself. The truth is it usually takes at least a bucket of water and a few hours.
The scent, the narrative of criminality sticks to men like sap on a tree - you might not always get the right man, but they've always done something. With that and your trusty flame-piece you've gotten to the bottom of many a fell conspiracy, all for that heady rush as people realize the comfortable lies they had for protection have all burned away and all that's left is a final judgement at the barrel of your pistol. You don't need anyone to point you at the worst trouble the city is facing, it's your favourite place to be.
(Primary: Social
Secondary: Mental
Tertiary: Physical
Fighting Style: Flamepiece and Showmanship
Perk: Scent of Crime. You can tell if someone pursues a life of crime, and gauge the rough weight of their misdeeds - although not what their particular crimes are.
Weakness: Monologuing)
It fits you like a glove, whatever it is. Appropriately attired, you tuck in your hat and procure a fresh cheroot from your desk. You open your door and prepare to forge out into the elements.
What does it look like outside?
(Approval vote - pick as many as you like.)
[ ] - A heavy fall of rain, but most of it is caught by the gutters.
Monsoon season is a bitch but it comes every year here in the East - the city is rich enough to have built gutters to direct the flow. Nobody's house is falling over, but that does mean that an entire Inner Sea worth of water is coming straight for you, carrying the scents of thrown out perfume and paint along with it. Better make sure to keep the powder dry.
[ ] - A knee-high torrent of water, washing along the streets. Thank gods you have high boots.
Rain down in the South is a dangerous affair - you don't quite live in a desert city but close enough to it. When it rains it pours, and when it pours it floods. In the worse times people die as the torrents knock their houses over, trapping them underneath, or completely flood the underways where the homeless live. This isn't a worse time - the killers today are all human. Lucky you.
[ ] - A biting cold with a smattering of sleet.
You can't say that it ever gets warm up north, but it's close enough to it that you can only see your breath a little bit. The People and the Buildings both huddle together for warmth and security, both commodities in short supply here. If you had any sense you'd be doing the same, but if you had any sense you wouldn't be in this predicament in the first place. Besides, who ever heard of a Northerner who was afraid of a little cold?
[ ] - A tide of foul-smelling filth and smog.
Layers and layers of filth all stacked up on top of each other - that's what this city is. You'd think that the rain would wash it clean, and maybe afterward it smells better, but right now in the middle of it you have inch-deep rivers of fucking garbage. Add to that the fog mixing with the smoke from the industrial district and you have a mixture that will clean your lungs by perforating them right through. Smoking isn't a bad habit here, it's an act of self defence.
[ ] - A pleasant spring rain.
They say all kinds of nice things about the weather in the Scarlet Empire, but up close it's really hard to beat ten generations of magical weather-control. Tapping into the power of the earth and sky is the domain of demigods who wouldn't give you a second glance, but they own this island so thoroughly you can't even get a good downpour. It's all drizzles perfectly calculated for maximum irrigation. Maximum irritation is more like it, what's the point in being in a foul mood if the weather isn't going to co-operate?
You are Sharell Zenteno, and you live in Gem.
(Skills Gained:
Archetype skills: Investigate, Lore, Awareness
Character skills: Dodge, Stealth, Bureaucracy)
These are your streets. These are your people. Most days the city of Gem shines, a dazzling diamond beacon encrusted into the side of a dead volcano. On good days the buzz of barkers are a backround roar as fortunes are won and lost. Merchants and miners and mercenaries mix with sorcerers from the North, academicians from the great library and the talking lions that are the Despot's fiercest allies. Today this whole affair has been reduced to a great watery mess - merchant stalls and carts have been roped, anchored or floated to not wash away and only the bravest are still out in the elements. Including you.
You wade through the floodwaters with slow, determined steps, grabbing onto any support you can find to prevent yourself getting swept off your feet. Pulling yourself along by the bent supporting poles of a food cart, you take a moment to sit on the surface to catch your breath and relieve it of a hastily abandoned wrap of meat. It tastes about as gristly as you'd expect and the congealed fat is a particularly horrible bit of culinary adventure, but your entire early life was spent starving. You'd rather choke bad food down than see it go to waste.
Although ordinary humans in the world of Creation are often considered weak, they are only so in comparison to the numerous supernatural beings and enhanced humans and outright gods that roam the Flat Earth. Sharell is near the minimum of physical prowess for a mortal, which still means that she can lift forty-pound weights with some effort, hold her breath for over a minute, and make a six-foot standing jump. Knee-high floodwaters? Unless she hits a bad patch of rapids, she'll manage.
You slide yourself back into the water with a splash. It's slow going, but at least your feet are dry. Your friend Ash Cricket had laughed at you when you got yourself hip waders. "We live in a desert!" he said, "there's no water for miles!"
For some reason he hadn't cottoned onto the fact that it flooded every time it rained, so in that post-flood period where water was cheap you set up demonstrations with sand, silt and rock to illustrate exactly what happened in Gem - the desert could absorb every drop of water the two of you had ever seen in your lives and not even notice, but it couldn't do it all at once. The volcano was even worse - yes, the rock could absorb water, but only very, very slowly, and the result of that is that every once in a while Gem transforms from the driest city in the world into a lake with a troubled city sticking out of it.
Your experimental demonstration of the difference between porosity and permeability hadn't really impressed him; he had called you a nerd and mussed up your hair, but you stuck with it and it stuck with him long enough for him to survive three more floods with ease and only meet his end getting run over by a carriage. You had brought your best case before the Despot, studying previous rulings and citing precedents for restitution in similar incidents. You're pretty sure none of that actually did any good - the law in Gem is the whim of the Despot, and if he changed his mind from previous rulings, or decided that "that urchin who hung out with him" didn't count as family, you would have been sent away with nothing or worse. But apparently your gumption in trying to be a proper lawyer got a laugh out of him, and he ordered restitution from the carriage driver (who hadn't been the slightest bit prepared to defend himself from a legal challenge from an urchin girl). Just like that, you got to stop living on the street.
But Cricket?
[ ] - Days like this you really fucking miss him. ( + Integrity)
[ ] - The only eulogy he ever got was at that trial, but you gave a damn good one ( + Performance )
[ ] - You wish you could forget his final moments, rest easy bud (+ Awareness )
[ ] - Sometimes life just deals you a bad hand, there's worse ways to go ( + Willpower )
The rain is pouring off crystals and through the silt of the mountain turning rainwater into a glittering muddy brown river that's going to stain your boots for days to come. You don't appreciate the weather being so heavy handed with its metaphors right now but the weather in Gem has always been a bit of an asshole.
A large yellow dog swims by you, having a much easier time paddling against the current. You tip your hat as one hound to another, only to gasp as you see trailing behind her a whole litter of her children, swimming in a line. Then, at a remove, there's one smaller than the rest, trying to keep up, His head dips under the water and he comes up sputtering. It's not really your problem. You've got places to be. But runts should stick together.
Do you-
No. You're doing this. The only question is how. You're the gadgeteer genius of the Southern Jewel, you've got a telescoping pole in your pockets, you can pull him in if he's amenable.
[ ] - Engineer him a makeshift raft from bits and bobs lying around. You're a dangerous person to be around right now, and he's got his own adventure to be on. ( + Craft, + Specialty: Jury-Rigging.)
[ ] - Fish him up to higher ground. The rooftops are probably safer than the water right now and it'll give him a chance to catch up. ( + Athletics, Speciality: Urban Traversal )
[ ] - Bring him with you. He's probably not housebroken, but then, neither are half the people in Gem. (+ Survival, + Specialty: Doggos)
[ ] - Other (Write-in)
Characters are shaped and guided by your choices, but they also have their own voices! Certain paths will open or close based on the viewpoint character, as more intelligent characters will open new paths and more strong-willed ones will refuse to consider others. You can at any time add write-in options but they can, if they are substantially against a strong-willed character's ethos (and particularly if the voting margin is slim), sometimes be overridden. Even so, creativity in write-ins can open up entirely new avenues of investigation or create a decisive advantage - this is not to discourage experimentation, just to make you aware of the pitfalls.
In calm times, a character will strive to think of and put forward their best options - death might metaphorically lurk behind every corner, but this is not a game of "gotcha" where one option in every set is a trap. In desperate situations (and rest assured there will be plenty of those), the more options will become available and the further outside their ethos and capabilities a character will consider. In desperation, even very clearly terrible decisions will appear as characters rack their brains for anything they can think of to win the day.
It takes you a while, but you're here. The Trading Houses of the Midnight Tales, you can tell they're filthy rich because of all the space dedicated to overhangs to shade what would otherwise be blisteringly hot marble flooring and how the whole structure rises out of the water, built on a foundation that let them architecturally look down their noses at the less successful around them. Right now it's providing the side benefit that unlike most other places, they're still high and dry. Guild Prince Cheshago got himself horribly murdered while on their premises in a manner so mysterious your own employer wasn't very interested in telling you what it was. You know what the poor guy looks like, tall with slicked black hair and a paunch that came from good eating and bad self control. You know that he was here on 'Official Business', whatever that is and you know that he was murdered this morning while the downpour had already begun to sweep away anything not nailed down.
It's a job absolutely festooned with warning flags but you aren't in a position to say no to the Guild, the legal expertise you borrowed to get justice for Cricket had a price and the agreement was clear cut. You owe them one, you don't get to be picky about how that debt is paid.
But it really would have been nice if they'd at least told them you were coming.
You recognize the polished bronze armour of the Crimson Dune mercenaries, a fairly common choice when hiring guards thanks to their reputation for hawk-like focus, punctuality and being utterly humourless bastards.
"You really think I'd wade out here without permission?" you say, trying to stare up the nostrils of their jackal themed headpiece. Only their mouth is exposed but the thin disapproving line their lips makes communicates volumes.
"Paperwork" she hisses, "Or piss off."
You gesture at the vast streams of water behind you currently washing away plenty of paperwork among the other bits of debris its travels have stolen away from houses that usually don't have a need for windows.
"And it's got to bear the right seals," she adds, as if you were just helpfully pointing out where she could find some.
"Think I saw the right seals catching fish a few blocks back," you say, flashing a winning smile. She frowns. Doesn't get it. You're talking to a fucking brick wall.
This is going to need a different approach, because you really don't want to go back and fetch the right paperwork.
[ ] - You are here from the Guild to investigate a murder of their own, impress on her how being unhelpful right now is not doing her Company any favours. (Presence)
[ ] - Find another way in, the water hasn't damaged this place but it has washed a lot of intriguingly climbable things up against its walls. (Athletics)
[ ] - Find another way in, she probably can't see that well in her dumb mask and this place has plenty of doors. (Stealth)
[ ] - Fake some paperwork, you already got the contract for this job, it can't be that hard. ( Linguistics )
[ ] - Cite legal precedent. There's been a murder, that gives you free pass to creatively intepret the law ( Bureaucracy )
[ ] - Go back and fetch the right paperwork. Seethe. (Resistance) [ ] - Try and force your way in, a good brick to the face should NO. She is huge. Are you kidding me?
[ ] - Other (Write-in)
The little yellow puppy clambers from your telescoping pole onto your arm and shakes himself off, spraying you very thoroughly and not really getting himself much drier in the process. Resigning yourself to the smell of wet dog, you tuck him into the pocket you usually use to stash away things that other people don't need to worry about for a bit. He squirms a bit to try and get back out but eventually he settles down because it's warm in there and the leather lining is pretty comfy. Picking out a quick route to higher ground you reach up to grab the canvas rail of a market stall and try a swing for higher ground, the wet metal immediately threatening to slip out of your grip. There's a gut wrenching moment as you almost utterly embarrass yourself with a belly flop into the water but you catch yourself and hang onto the rail and reconsider. Do you have enough- yes you have enough room, you swing on the rail like a trapeze and then a pull and a tuck of your hips and you're using the leverage of the bar to get yourself up on the rail, pulling yourself up so you can quickly dance along the thin metal bar as it shakes in its joints and jump to the roof the stall was set against before it collapses.
It's hard to see far in this relentless downpour but you spy a blob of yellow arcing through the muddy river below and the occasional guiding bark gives away the mother dog and her children. Taking a second to map it out in your head, you have a pretty good idea where she might be going, and how to get there yourself. Making sure again that you're still the temporary owner of one soggy puppy, you plant your feet and surrender yourself to speed.
The chaotic sprawling mass of roofs would seem impassable to someone who hasn't spent the time to learn which mortar is soft and will give way to a sturdy toecap, or which climbs will leave you with just enough space to push off a wall, shimmy up a little with back pressed into smooth plaster and then slip onto a nice sloped roof which you can slide down to a slight overhang that will stop you from flying out into the street below. Experience like that can only be bought by someone who's spent their whole life running around a city from something or other.
You need to give yourself a little more leeway than usual because you're carrying a wriggly passenger who isn't quite as enthusiastic about full-speed somersaults as you are, but that's hardly a difference as you glide through it all until your lungs burn and your muscles ache. It's wet and slippery and you nearly miss your grip on a chimney that you're using to shimmy back to ground level but it seems you were almost right about their destination. There's a little nook that's formed out of the swept away remains of some poor bastards shack and the whole lot of them are using it to get dry. The mother looks up and growls at you as you approach, and doesn't stop until you've very carefully set down a very dizzy puppy, who only throws up on your hands a little as thanks for the ride.
You're panting like a, well, like a dog, and at this point it's down to hope that the burning pain in your chest is your lungs and not a heart attack, but the little guy wags his tail and so does his family. It takes you a few minutes before you no longer feel like throwing up, and the pins and needles of going all-out are still with you an hour later. But for all the things this damn city takes, every now and again you can give a little something back.
----
"Let me tell you a story," you say as you quickly duck in out of the rain, the Midnight Tales Trading house has a roof that extends out a good bit further than the walls creating a pocket of dry space too tempting for you to ignore right now.
(Perception+Awareness = 2 successes. Caught a glimpse)
"What part of 'piss off' didn't you hear?" the guard growls as she takes a step toward you. You catch a fleeting glimpse of a white of a bone handle jutting out from hip that had been hidden by her leather cloak until now and you can guess what it's attached to. You'd see the end of a sword from the shape of her cloak and while daggers are a popular carry item in Gem, they're pretty useless for guards who'd be hopelessly outmatched against anyone who brought a real weapon.
A Flame Piece then, far too expensive a thing for a mercenary guard to own so the Midnight Tales must have been so spooked by the murder they've provided her with one for a little extra security. You've never seen someone actually use one, but stories in Gem of the horrific things Firedust weapons can do to a person are a popular topic. Gem may have its considerable wealth endure on its namesake, but the mountain of firedust buried deep underground could be worth even more than all those gemstones put together.
"Care for a smoke?" you add quickly before she gets wild ideas that she should start waving the Flame Piece about. You offer her a still mostly dry cheroot from outstretched fingers, it's only a cheap rolled smoke but their appeal in the cold is universal. Your many pockets are well-waterproofed so you've even got dry matches, which normally aren't very impressive in the firedust capital of the world, but today they turn a cheap smoke into a luxury.
"You can talk," she says a few minutes later, as the two of you are smoking and looking out at the rain, and you've discovered that her name is Raicho, that she comes from a peaceful and incredibly boring sounding country up north called the Lap. She came this way to make her fortune and it's taking longer than she liked, but she has two children back home and she's going to send them to learn numbers and get comfy indoor jobs if it kills her. Which it might. "Then you can go fetch the paperwork."
She's still got her dumb looking mask on, but the long nosepiece of the jackal actually helps catch the warmth of the cheroot and you're starting to get a little jealous of it. It's padded with leather so it's probably quite comfy in this weather. It would be nice to be able to look her in the eyes properly before you lie your ass off to her, but you'll just have to hope a good lie can get through metal.
"Guild Prince is a big deal" you say, drawing on your admittedly shaky grasp of how the Guild operates. "Like a Head of House or a Commander, top of the chain. "
"About a year and a half back," you start, "there was a terrible killing. Assassination you might call it. About a girl, I think, but that's just my opinion. Victim was a great big burly one," you holding up your arms in a muscle pose gets another frown from her. "Big dumb son of one of the Dragons from over the ocean, family must have hated him to send him all the way out here but you know what the stories are about Dragons and family. They get real weird about it."
Corner of your eye you see Raicho's listening as the smoke curls out of her mask's nostrils, which is good or else you were in for a miserable walk.
"Anyway murder done in passion, so an easy case to solve especially when Rankar himself has taken an interest. They knew who was responsible and were hammering on their door before the sun even crossed the sky. But the killer ain't home, you got all the Despot's men lined up around the place and the big man himself looking livid and rather than try flee like any sensible person out comes the killer's father, eyes full of tears. 'He is not here!' he cries, getting on his knees before the Despot. 'He has been sent away. He will never trouble you again.' Old Rankar demands that if he doesn't give over his son, he and his whole household will be put to the sword. 'I know what has been done is terrible,' the father says, 'but I must protect my son.'"
Well, out of respect for the father's faithfulness, Rankar cuts his head off quickly. And then the rest of the household. And the servants. And the laborers." You take a long, slow drag of your cheroot, "all quick, all clean, all dead. Because when the Dragons came calling he wanted to be damn sure they knew he'd made sure it'd never happen again."
You aren't going to mention that the Dragons were someone the Despot tried to keep sweet, while the only reason he'd get involved in the death of a Guild Prince would be to gleefully rub salt in the wound, but you're banking she doesn't know that and you see it's a good investment as her grim expression deepens into a frown.
"I just don't want to tell the Guild we're being given the runaround. I've been in front of Rankar once, I don't want a second run of it," you add, hoping for a little sympathy here. You are being hard done by after all.
The smoke billows out of the nosepiece of her mask as she harrumphs. "Bullshit," she says, but she checks with her fellow inside the door, and it opens to you. "Bullshit," she repeats.
"Maybe" you say, tossing your stub of a smoke into the floodwaters and sweeping inside. "But why risk it?"
Intelligence + Bureaucracy + Laws = 2 successes, required some bribery but enough to get there.
"Oh, you must be the famous Miss Feathers! My deepest apologies for the trouble, you know guards, stubborn walls of meat the lot of them," you're greeted by a blond merchant in dark glasses. His smile is too wide and he's much too happy to see you. You had wondered if Raicho was just irritatingly by-the-book but seeing her boss you're pretty sure now she had orders to delay as long as she could.
"Miss Zenteno," you correct him automatically, and by the way his mouth hangs open for just a moment he's having the exact same thought as you right now. Shit, someone else is working this case? "I'm going to see the crime scene right now."
"Of course, of course," he rallies so quickly you'd swear it was just your imagination, "such a nasty business, hardly a way for a man in our profession to take his leave. Better in your bed surrounded by beautiful women, am I right?" He walks backwards as he keeps ahead of you, looking a little bit like a fat duck trying to keep a piece of bread from escaping.
"Of course we sealed up the room the second we discovered the body, can't have ruffians tromping through and disturbing evidence that an investigator of your stature doubtless requires…"
Now this one, this one could use a good brick to the face, you muse as you sweep through marbled halls and trophy cases full of bones of monsters that this particular toad definitely had no hand in killing. As your hanger-on fumbles with his keys you take a minute to examine a mural twice as tall as you are, a starlit sky in ultramarine blue fading to black, a camp surrounded by red and yellow and white desert flowers, the small silhouettes of men around a campfire with instruments while their pack animals water. The brush strokes are so fine they're practically invisible, and the night sky threatens to swallow you up. The original Midnight Tales. A humble origin on a painting that probably cost a whole vault's worth of silver.
[ ] - Were those flowers Dahlia? They could have made good money selling those for aching bones. They really missed a trick there. ( + Medicine )
[ ] - Meh. The book was better. ( + Linguistics )
[ ] - You know someone who could fence it too. You'd need bigger pockets for a whole painting though, even you have your limits. ( + Larceny )
The first thing that hits you when the door opens is the smell. Sickeningly dry, sweet and metallic, you can taste the scent of blood right on the tip of your tongue and want to wash it out immediately. The room certainly has enough fine wine stashed around it that would do the job.
Cheshago hadn't had a particularly clean death, splatters of blood are flecked across the room some going high enough to touch the lofty ceiling above and eventually coming to a final rest in a pool of his own blood that has marred the colourful and no doubt very expensive carpets a ghastly dark red. You'd have expected a fat man from the amount of blood that had been carved out of him and you aren't disappointed, a bit of a paunch had been a very polite description, Cheshago can at least go back into the cycle proud that he's eaten more than his fair share of meals.
Intelligence + Investigation= 6 successes. Crushed it.
Right away your eyes hone in on the jade pin styled like a small flame that's still binding Cheshago's black bun of hair together. The dark green polished gemstone is a sign of wealth like no other, Jade is the currency of the incredibly rich and no thief or common hired killer would pass up a chance to fatten their pockets with an easy score like that.
You decide to leave the body till last though, give a chance for your stomach to settle and get used to the smell before getting even closer to it. Instead you examine the blood splatters and try to work out how they were made. They'd flicked off something and Cheshago certainly has a fair number of punctures on his body if the blood spots staining his silk robes are anything to go by, but even with someone really hacking away at a resisting body you wouldn't expect this much of a mess from a murder. It's excessive, incredibly excessive and some of them must surely have been inflicted after death. So it was deliberate? What would the point of that be?
A few years experience hunting the lost lambs of Gem has taught you to not get stuck on a rabbit hole of enquiry so you set that question aside for a moment. There is more to unpick from this scene before you really get down to making some wild theories. Like how one trail of blood that splashed across the desk has been neatly bisected by something blocking it. Walking around the room you try to imagine a position that the attacker could have been but nothing really works unless it was some ludicrous scenario like Cheshago being hung from the ceiling and stuck like a pig.
Wits+Awareness = 3 successes. More than enough.
Of course! It wasn't the killer which had blocked Cheshago's blood splatter, it was whatever was on this now suspiciously spotless desk. Raicho's Boss had said they hadn't touched the crime scene but it would not surprise you in the least to find out Raicho's Boss is a liar. Or perhaps you've found the only honest merchant in Gem and the thief had taken whatever was here with them? But why would they kill Cheshago so messily then only take the Midnight Tales' things? You are going to have some words after this, if they're going to keep making cooperation difficult they clearly have something to hide.
Intelligence + Medicine= 1 successes. She's not trained in medicine, so this is pretty lucky actually!
There's no avoiding the corpse any longer. You wish you could say don't deal with dead bodies but you haven't led so charmed a life. You just don't do it very often and you quickly remember why as the gorge in your throat threatens to escape as you unstick limbs thick with blood and cut away silk clothes that have been pressed into wounds and make stripping the corpse just that little bit more difficult.
The cuts are deep and numerous, haphazard in placement and furthering your idea that they were done more out of malice and deception than an intent to kill. It couldn't be more than a dagger blade that inflicted them from the size of the stab wounds but there is no sign of slashes and no ragged wounds. Cheshago hadn't been able to fight back or even struggle when these were inflicted. Or had he? Under the fingernails you notice the shining glitter of gold and you pull his hand up to get a better look. It is flakes rather than paint and a quick pull with a pair of tweezers gets you a tiny piece of it that you can play with. It's soft and bends easily, but doesn't break. Is this actual gold and if so where had it come from? You aren't a metallurgist but you know gold is useless for anything but jewelry, so it isn't from a weapon and nothing else in this room has a matching golden shine. Whatever it was, it's gone now.
Cutting open the robe on the chest you find a useful hidden pocket that matches the kind you favour, deep enough to hide something of reasonable size and lined with fur and a fine leather to keep whatever is inside both dry and well cushioned. You feel a little touch of respect at the gentle reminder that the Guild Princes might enjoy a fine life, but they aren't stupid.
Looting the dead is bad luck, but that rule probably doesn't really apply to those trying to find their killers so you cut the pocket free first before dumping it out on the ground away from the stained bloody mats.
A simple leather bound journal comes out first, bound with a leather string that pins a peafowl feathered quill to the front of it. A personal journal? You quickly crack it open to be faced with an incomprehensible wall of scratches and looping circles. Pages upon pages of the stuff and no helpful key to be seen at the front of the back. Staring at it right now isn't going to help you make any more sense of it so you close it back up and rebind it with the leather cord and gently set aside.
There's still something caught in the pocket so you give it a good shake and an ornate gold key comes tumbling out first making a disconcertingly loud clang as it bounces off the wooden floor. Inlaid with two bright yellow gems to form a stylized lions head at the bow, the bit is a cross shaped piece with grooves cut into it quite unlike anything you'd ever seen before. Incredibly fanciful for a key, if this is the cost they put into the key then whatever it unlocks must be worth a ridiculous fortune. You pick it up to check it for scratches that might match the gold under Cheshago's fingernails but you don't see any, it's in absolutely pristine condition, even your little drop hadn't put a dent in it. If gold is soft enough to be scratched off then what is this stuff?
If anyone knows about these items they haven't mentioned it, now the question is: will they be missed?
[ ] - Keep the Gold Flake
[ ] - Leave the Gold Flake
[ ] - Keep the Golden Lion Key
[ ] - Leave the Golden Lion Key
[ ] - Keep the Coded Journal
[ ] - Leave the Coded Journal
The loud impact of the key against the floor suddenly makes you aware of how quiet it's been. In the dark corner of the room you spot movement and become suddenly aware that you are not alone.
You hear the growl first, and as your eyes adjust to the light you see the outline. The familiar outline. That's Guild Prince Cheshago all right, quite thoroughly out of his body. Faintly translucent, his face is half taken up by a fanged maw packed with far too many teeth, his long black hair is matted and mangy and slightly prehensile, and there's no intelligence whatsoever in his eyes - only a deep, burning hunger.
You are struck with three thoughts in rapid succession.
First, it's pretty damn impossible for this to really be him - an improperly handled body usually takes a few days to release a bestial hunger spirit like this.
Which leads right to the Second, either Cheshago has been dead a lot longer than you've been told - and you're pretty sure he hasn't been given the body had still been warm-ish while you undressed it, or something spiritual had gone really badly wrong here.
On the Flat Earth, the human soul is composed of two parts. The higher soul, or hun, is the seat of reason, intelligence and memory. Should it persist beyond death rather than returning to the cycle of reincarnation it becomes a ghost: a stilted being powerfully driven by the memories of its life, but nonetheless one that can be spoken to and reasoned with. These can be called upon for their wisdom, magically summoned for service or even enslaved by the exceptionally powerful, or develop cordial long-term relationships with their descendents in places where the veil between this life and the next is thin. Perhaps more relevantly to the situation at hand, they can also be questioned on how they died.
The charming creature currently stinking up the parlor is not that. The lower soul, or po, is the seat of a human's feelings, emotions, and animalistic instincts. If proper burial rites are not observed to lay it to rest, it will rise up after a few days and become a hungry ghost. Deprived of reason and memory it is a bestial thing that seeks blood. It is not, however, much better at killing things than the human that it came from; a battlefield full of the restless dead can be a real nightmare realm, but one paunchy merchant prince might be more manageable.
Oh yes, and a not very distant third hot on the heels of the others, you are currently alone in a room with a monster.
To someone who's never dealt with this sort of thing before, being stuck in a room with an animalistic half-soul that's just become aware of you would be the stuff of horror stories.
You have never dealt with this sort of thing before and you really don't like horror stories.
Breathless panic has you go for your pockets, if you're about to die you aren't going to go easy. Your hand closes around…
[ ] - Long needles kissed with salt are a bane to the restless dead, or at least you heard a story about it once. You carry them mainly to quickly prove people wrong who pretend they were possessed when committing a crime, maybe it's time to test the tales. (+Melee, +Specialty: Improvised Weapons)
[ ] - Screw fighting this thing! Duck outside, toss in a grenade you've packed with nails and just the lightest touch of firedust you'd gotten your hands on, shut the door and let them deal with it. (+Thrown, +Specialty: Improvised Grenades)
[ ] - No, really, screw fighting this thing! Your contract said nothing about fighting evil ghosts. Throw down a smoke bomb and get out of there fast. There's no telling what it will get up to in a confused state, but that's all kinds of not your problem. (+Dodge, +Specialty: Distractions)
There will be chances after this to gain more skills, but this will finalize character creation. We'll put up a proper character sheet once it's all done. Voting closes in 48 hours.
You could feel with your fingers that the small wooden ball still had some of the carved grooves from when it was a childs toy. With patience, a little bit of swearing and a hand drill you'd turned that toy into a pretty good container for a smoke bomb. You use your thumb to push off the blob of wax keeping the powdered sugar and refined saltpeter nice and dry and hammer the metal striker hard, praying it makes enough of a spark to light properly before you toss it.
The sugar burns so much better than you'd expect and with a hiss as the heated ball burns your fingers you half throw, half drop the smoke bomb towards Cheshago's toothy ghost. The wooden ball pinwheels on the ground as it spews out a thick stream of white smoke. The hungry ghosts robes shimmer as it steps around the billowing ball and advances, white smoke rising up round its legs parting in billowing wisps as it advances. It might be feral but it's damn quick on the uptake about what the smoke bomb means and lurches at you while it can still see. You dive sideways into the smoke to escape hands that have grown disturbingly long fingernails, it's not a graceful landing on all fours as you hit the deck but a sprawl, your vision completely swamped and throat burning as the air becomes thick with smoke but you had the good sense to remember where the door was and scramble on all fours for it. Clambering up when your hand slaps what you hope is the edge of the room you fumble about for the door handle, feeling it bump into your side as you roll your body along the wall searching desperately for the exit.
Hands sweaty from panic you grab onto this lifeline as hard as you can and wrench down, pressing your shoulder to the door. It doesn't budge, the only thing you can coax out of it as you shake the handle up and down frantically is the rattle of a simple mechanism refusing to play along. That slimy bastard had locked you in here!
You stop rattling the door handle as you hear the Hungry Ghost through the smoke making horrible guttural snuffling noises with a throat that doesn't sound like it was made for any human body.
Wits 2 + Awareness 3 = 1 Success. Not enough, Sharell loses track of where the ghost was in the room.
Pressing your back to the wall you hold back a groan of revulsion as you feel the sticky sensation of Cheshago's blood from the stained walls seep into your hair. Bone-deep terror is a good motivator to keep dead quiet right now. You can't work out what that noise it's making is meant to achieve, is it trying to sniff you out? The mix of burnt sugar and blood in this room was a disgusting, overpowering stench and you're pretty sure it'd easily disguise your sweat, so it surely couldn't do that.
Sharell tries to Go to Ground.
Sharell: Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 - Action Penalty 3 = 0 Success
Hungry Ghost: Senses 5 - Smoke Bomb 2 = 1 Successes
She fails and is spotted.
Hungry Ghost uses Withering Claw Attack.
Claw 10 - Smoke Bomb 2 = 2 Successes
Sharell has an Evasion of 3 so this isn't enough a hit. Technically she has a penalty in the smoke too and should be on 2, but her speciality in Distractions helps to get it back up to 3
A single dice roll for people to turn up to investigate failed.
The Smoke bomb ceases to provide penalties as it disperses thank to silhouettes becoming easy to pick out. Next turn it will be fully gone and cannot be used to hide either.
The wood of the door explodes right beside your head as the Ghosts fingernails hammer themselves into it as if it was made of soft clay. You tilt your head away as splinters bounce off your face and in a panic throw yourself out into the middle of the room, body checking the creature as you barely evade its grasp in the confusion of the smoke.
Initiative
Sharell - 5
Hungry Ghost - 4
Sharell dives for cover.
Sharell: Dexterity 3 + Dodge (+ Distraction) 4 = 1 Success
Was going for heavy cover, but with a poor roll will say she only manages light.
Hungry Ghost uses Withering Claw Attack again.
Claw 10 - Smoke Bomb 2 = 3 Successes
Sharell has an Evasion of 4 with the light cover so this misses!
A two dice roll for people to turn up to investigate failed.
Your foot clips the rug of the room as you run blind into the smoke and you fall forward. Years of experience clambering around the roofs of Gem give you the good sense to break the fall with a roll and your leg kicks against something heavy as you come out of the impromptu tumble. It felt heavy and right now something heavy between you and a monster felt like a great idea.
Feeling out the lacquered wood with your hand you remember the big heavy desk in the room and crawl for the space underneath it, sliding and kicking your body along the ground as you scramble for cover. A deafening bang makes you press body flat on the ground, you were making more than enough noise for the Hungry Ghost to follow you but whatever it used to sense you clearly didn't work for desks as you heard a flurry of harsh grunts as it pried its hand loose of the thick wood.
Gasping for a breath you almost begin to push yourself out the other side of the desk, the chair grinds along the floor annoyingly slowly as you try to get it out of the way so you just give it a good shove to tip it over and finish the crawl through. Your leg snaps straight and a shock runs up your spine as you pull on a leg that suddenly won't move. You feel pressure on your foot and can see the outline of the creature in the thinning smoke down by your legs. The fuckers bitten into your boot! Giving it a good kick in the face with the other, you're really glad for the metal toe caps as you hear the growls muffled by a bite choke and then get more frantic.
It has you and doesn't want to let go, but thankfully your boots are stronger than it's bite and a few more good kicks to the face as you try to drag yourself free you feel it snap away. You pull your legs in fast before it can grab you instead and wriggle past that damn chair.
Initiative
Sharell 5
Hungry Ghost 4
Sharell tries Stealth.
Sharell: Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 = 1 Success
Hungry Ghost: Senses 5 - Smoke Bomb 2 = 0 Successes
She is hidden, with no combat skills she wouldn't try to attack but if she wanted extended stealth she'd have to try the much harder Go to Ground maneuver and I don't think she'd pass it. So stunting a bit of an accidental attack. Since it's an improvised weapon she loses 1 Initiative to do it. A bookcase is obviously a heavy weapon!
Sharell uses Withering Book Attack. Using a willpower because she is having a bad day.
Sharell: Dexterity 3 = 1 Success + 1 Success from Willpower.
Hungry Ghost's defence is down due to the smoke and the sneak attack, they only got an Evasion of 1.
Move hits and Sharell gains 1 Initiative from the Ghost, recouping her loss. A bookcase does +11 Bashing Damage and Sharell adds 1 from her strength. The Hungry ghost has 3 Soak so Sharell gets to roll 9 damage dice.
Damage 9 = 5 Successes
Withering attacks can only steal initiative, but this is good because you need initiative to do any real damage. The Hungry Ghost goes to -1 Initiative and is in an initiative crash. You don't want to be there! Sharell gets another 5 Initiative from Initiative break.
The Ghost may have a bruised ego but goes for yet another Withering Claw Attack
Claw 10 = 5 Successes
Sharell has an Evasion of 3 so this hits.
Hungry Ghost does 13 Damage, Sharell has 5 soak.
Damage 8 = 2 Successes
The ghost reclaims 2 initiative off Sharell, leaving still a good bit ahead.
The smoke is now gone.
A three dice roll for people to turn up to investigate succeeded! They'll add to combat next round.
Crawling out the other side of the desk you feel relief as the ghost is feral enough that it crawls after you. If it'd been smart enough to just go round the desk you'd have been utterly fucked. Pangs of shock in your leg echo as you walk but you bite through the pain and reach to press one hand to the wall, following it round to the bookcases on the walls before the door. The desk behind you crashes over as the hungry ghost stands up, the unreal strength of it easily tipping over something that you'd have broken your back even trying to lift. Again you try to calm your breath and fade away into the smoke, or at least what's left of it. There must be some ventilation here because it's thinning out way too fast for your liking. You can see the black shape of the Hungry Ghost through the white mist now and you're damn sure it can do the same so you press yourself back against the bookshelves and hope disguising your silhouette will buy you just a moment to think.
You're coming up real short on ideas.
The wood creaks under the monster's feet as it sniffs the air again, misshapen throat gargling breath as its head bobs around. It approaches your position unsteadily, body lilting left and right as it tries to pick you out from all the messy scents of the crime scene. Long fingernails reach out to test the air and they're less than a feet away as they scratch along the wood of the shelf. As the smoke begins to show flecks of colour of their ethereal robes, you don't take the chance this time. You jump and grab the top of the bookcase and kick out your legs to the side, spilling books everywhere as you kick out a shelf to try find purchase and then when they finally stick you heave harder than you've ever done before, spikes of adrenaline giving you a strength you didn't even know you had in you.
It works, you feel the bookcase come away from the wall and begin to fall and you push hard with your hands and let your body swing out away from it. The landing on the wooden floor sucks for you, but it sucks so much worse for the hungry ghost as some fine Southern Texts and expensive imported wood comes crashing down on top of it with a crash so bone shattering the whole room shook.
Nursing what was going to be a splendid bruise if you survived this, you stand up and catch you breath. The Hungry Ghost wasn't moving, with a fleck of annoyance you realise it didn't even give you a chance for a snappy one line before you threw the books at it.
A ghostly hand punched out from the wood with its fingers bunch up to make a deadly bouquet of sharpened fingernails and slashes along your right thigh. You feel the tug on your coat as claw meets leather and then a line of fire is dragged down your flesh. Stumbling back you avoid a second stab, but the scratch does wonders to sharpen your focus. Ghosts, not so easy to kill, right.
Watching books spill off it as it rises, right now you're starting to regret never properly throwing in with a god. You could really use something to pray to right now.
Initiative
Sharell 13
Raicho 8
Hungry Ghost 2
Sharell is using her action to move away so she can withdraw.
Raicho is going straight for a Decisive Attack with the Flame Piece.
Attack 9 = 5 Successes
More than enough to hit. She deals 3 health levels of lethal damage.
The ghost swings for her in return.
Attack 11 - Wound Penalty 1 = 4 Successes.
It needs 5 so this misses.
With it unlikely the Ghost can catch you until its fight is resolved with Raicho one way or another I'm calling this combat over
There's a click and the doors thrown open with an angry cry of "I'm going to take you outside and drown you, you little sh-"
Raicho's threat dies in her throat as she sees the ghostly visage of Cheshago, his lolling tongue, sharpened nails and hungry eyes. You don't waste time and run for her, giving her a pat on the hip as you pass.
"He's all yours!" you say, short of breath but so relieved that you can't help but smile.
The ghost comes screaming after you and runs right into the barrel of Raicho's flame piece as she draws it and fires it point blank. The rumours didn't do it justice, the sound of its discharge is a punch to the ears and you almost lose your balance as a flare of light blazes down the corridor. From the screeching the monster is making that wasn't enough to finally kill it properly but it definitely didn't enjoy the experience. You see as you step back that Raicho's drawing the shortsword at her hip and taking a determined stance in the door.
Yeah she's got this, you'd just get in the way.
Turning down the hall, you try to ignore the pain in your leg as you jog out of the building past confused looking servants and into the downpour, pockets heavy with mysteries and a head full of questions.
Injuries - None
Willpower - 7/8
If you want to know what a Hungry Ghost stats are like they're here. They're actually not that threatening to most starter characters, but Sharell is a noodle.
Merits
Blood Scent: Hungry ghosts adds three successes on any
Perception-based roll to sense the presence of spilt blood,
and can smell battles or massacres from five miles away.
If it is specifically attempting to track or detect a character
who is bleeding, it adds an additional success for each
point of wound penalty that character is suffering.
As a Hungry Ghost it (thankfully) has no ghost charms.
Sharell survived her first combat, but the case is far from solved. Her wound was superficial and doesn't need special attention beyond a little cleaning, which means there's enough daylight for her to go one place before the end of the day.
Pick Two Investigation Targets for the night. You can do any number of actions under each target while you are there unless it specifically states to only pick one. So if you pick The Guild and one other location, you can if you wish do all five Guild Actions, or only one of them.
THE GUILD
[ ] - Renegotiate your Contract. No one told you about killer ghosts.
[ ] - Get details on Cheshago's reasons for being at the Midnight Tales.
[ ] - Press for Details on what's really going on. Clearly they know more than they're saying.
[ ] - Turn in the Code Book.
[ ] - Turn in the Gold Lion Key
MIDNIGHT TALES
[ ] - Go back and check if the ghost is dead and Raicho is okay.
[ ] - Go back and yell at the guy who locked you in. A lot. Then get him to talk.
[ ] - Investigate them legally. Ask contacts around the city about them. Gather rumour.
[ ] - Investigate them illegally. Break into offices, find out info.
[ ] - Turn in the Guild Code Book. Maybe they'll give you something for it?
[ ] - Turn in the Gold Lion Key.
CODED NOTEBOOK
PICK ONE
[ ] - Go home. Brew some tea. See if you can crack this thing.
[ ] - Hit the streets, see if the Sun Market is open even in the rain and if anyone is willing to trade some stolen guild codes for a few favours. It'll make this so much easier.
GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
[ ] - You got an old associate working in the grand libraries of House Iblan who will happily do a little research on the Key in exchange for smuggling them in some cheroots. They're not allowed to smoke. It's a tragic existence.
[ ] - Go get it appraised by trustworthy but disreputable sorts. They'll know what it's worth and what its made of at the very least.
[ ] - You found a missing cat for an Antiquitary from overseas about a month back, maybe they're still here? If anyone knows about strange things it's them.
GOLD FLAKES
PICK ONE
[ ] - Gold and silver is House Iblan's trade. Ask around contacts if anyone is trading it under the table, after all the Guild got it from somewhere right?
[ ] - A recently stolen item of gold from the guild. Someone has to know something. Shakedown time.
HUNGRY GHOST
[ ] - Find a priest. Ask them way too much about ghosts.
KILLER
[ ] - Stabbing a body relentlessly, painting the scene in blood. Killers like that are going to be infamous, asking around you contacts will give you a good list of who it might be and just how much trouble you're in.
TEN FEATHERS
PICK ONE
[ ] - The Midnight Tales merchant mentioned her briefly. Who is she and why is she also investigating this? Time to go ask around about this lady.
[ ] - Cut the bullshit. Let's just go find her and ask her directly what she's playing at.
WRITE IN
[ ] - Write in your own idea of where to start.
Every round when choosing what to investigate you also get this choice. If you only catch a few hours sleep you'll boost the chance of success of anything you do, especially if they'd benefit from being done at night or over a long period of time. A missed night of sleep won't be any trouble, it's when you start doing it regularly that things might begin to slide.
BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL
[ ] - Sleep
[ ] - Can't let the case get cold, you'll sleep when you're dead.
You shove your hands in your pockets and brace yourself for an oncoming wall of water as you step back out into the elements. For some reason it's not as much of a shock as it was before as it spatters off your hat in sheets. It feels a little more warming. Maybe it's just the adrenaline or an eagerness to be gone but you make excellent time walking away from the House of the Midnight Tales. You could have gleaned a little more there but you already know three things:
There's apparently some kind of famous investigator coming
The Tales might have just tried to kill you for not being said famous investigator?
With the way that flame piece unloaded, even if that fight goes their way (which you see no reason to doubt) the crime scene is going to be an unholy mess of things that are currently on fire, things that were recently on fire and things that have yet to realize the fire is coming.
In short, you're happy to make that particular disaster someone else's problem and you need more spiritual answers. You're pretty sure that a man killed this morning shouldn't be disgorging evil hunger ghosts no matter what happened to him, but you have no idea what went wrong or if that's sort of like the story about how drinking milk while doing it means you can't get pregnant. You know at least three people who came into the world because their parents believed that one. Certainty that you know the rules is a tremendously dangerous thing.
If everything you know about evil hunger ghosts has suddenly come into question, you need an expert opinion and a reassurance that they're not going to start popping up everywhere on this case. Saltpeter bombs are heavy and you are hesitantly willing to admit to that even you may not have enough pockets to deal with that.
The rich in Gem might be able to afford elaborate tombs that inevitably get raided and mortuary priests from abroad with a ten thousand year tradition or something. For someone in your price range the best expert opinion is a man in the business of handling services for the dead and simultaneously handling the worst corpse manglings the city has to offer. That means it's time to visit the nook of Gem affectionately nicknamed the Eatery.
The Eatery is the square of a longstanding rivalry between the three temples of Consumption, the premier purveyors of discount funerary services in the Southern Jewel. The God of Being Consumed By Insects is both freakishly influential and widely despised and although you're no stranger to bugs, poking your head inside that hive during a rainstorm is a little much even for you. The priests of the God of Being Consumed By Jackals are aggressive sorts and not always entirely picky about what's dead and what isn't, which has never sat right with you. A third temple, styled as an eyrie, has fallen into ruin - the rest joined forces and in what was a bracing night out for all concerned, ran the priests of the God of Being Consumed By Vultures out of town some years ago. Your selection is the happy medium between these and you head for the towering termite's nest of little tunnels and hidey-holes that has been made in honour of Templeton, the God of Being Consumed by Rats.
You immediately regret your decision to not go with the bugs. There's a bit of a rise as you come in but it's still flooded up to your ankles and as the candlelight shines on the water it also glints on thousands of beady little eyes. Every pew, every table, every chair, every floating bit of driftwood is entirely covered with rats, refugees from the storm. The great furry throng of rats are silent and although many look at you as you brush past, some of their attention is focused forward on a little man in dark robes and a noticeable stoop to his posture. He's holding a thin white needle of some kind pointing it at… there are about twenty rats in front of him and whenever he points to one with the needle they squeak. Coaxing out squeak upon squeak from them he forms a melody to some hymn that probably sounds a lot better outside the range of human hearing.
You clear your throat and announce yourself.
"Not really a good night for choir practice, is it Niall?" you say and the melody breaks. Rats are sent in a wave squeaking off to their hidey-holes and you suddenly become aware that every single one of those thousands of beady little eyes are now entirely focused on you.
Niall, Priest of Being Consumed By Rats, turns, pushing back greying hair and adjusting his spectacles as he captures his thoughts.
"I had just gotten them lined up and motivated. If you think herding cats is difficult, well…" He grunts in disapproval, but as he stands to face you his dark eyes are smiling, "you've come up in the world since we saw each other last, haven't you? What brings you back to this hole in the wall?"
"Working a case," you say, "I'm looking for a…"
"Rat, yes, of course. I don't suppose I can persuade you to be serious?"
"...spiritual advisor," you finish, and it's almost worth almost getting eaten by an evil ghost to see the look of shock across his face, although this is immediately replaced by the look of someone who is just so immensely pleased you've finally shown an interest.
Oh no.
You really might not have thought this through.
Manipulation + Presence = 1 success. We're going to hear a thing or two about rats.
"...and it's exceptional to me that people assume they have a monopoly on compassion, rats will care for their sick and injured just the same as we will, better sometimes in fact," he's telling you a solid hour later as the two of you feed vegetables to a pew full of rats and the sheer wastefulness of it makes your teeth hurt.
"Niall!"
"Of course they aren't much for organization, I tried to set up a proper infirmary on the third level but they insisted on-"
"Niall!"
"Oh, yes! You had a question, didn't you?"
You explain to him that you're looking for information on hungry ghosts - leaving out all the dangerous details. No sense in bringing more trouble to his doorstep.
He ponders on it for a long minute. Well, "ponders" isn't quite the right word. He's silent for a long minute while affectionately patting his fur babies.
"You've come to the right place, you know!" he starts at last, his enthusiasm undimmed, "the beast soul, it's all about wants and feelings. People envy the tombs and the funeral services, feel like it's unfair that they don't get something like that. It's not logical at all but the beast soul isn't the least bit logical, you know! It seems sordid, but my job is to dampen people's expectations. If you happen to be eaten by rats, well, that's just the circle of life! But if you feel done wrong by when that happens, the beast soul might rise up and seek vengeance. And since you can't really seek vengeance on rats in any meaningful way, you'll either target people you knew and didn't like or just blindly attack things. Neither is good!"
"So you have to be… angry about something?"
"More than that! Either you have to feel that your body was desecrated or you have to feel that sort of boiling sense of injustice that soaks down to your bones. You know what I mean?"
Your breath catches in your throat. You very much know what he means. You felt it on the day you lost Cricket. You don't have a good word for it but the closest was something you read in a book once.
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
He looks keenly at you for a second then continues as though he hadn't noticed. "But if you're expecting to be eaten by rats after you go, you won't rise up and seek vengeance! The others are that way too - jackals are just going to eat people's bodies if they get thrown out in the desert and that's all there is to it. Our duty is to convince people that it's a holy act and not a desecration."
You stop. You really want to press on but it's bothering you... "Wait, what about the vulture temple? Vultures are going to eat bodies too."
He pushes his spectacles up on his nose and gives a little shrug as a rat snatches a cut tuber out of his hands and starts to chew into it, "Well, you know, that's just politics."
You frown and he pats you on the head. "Now, unless you've changed a great deal you don't need to worry about hungry ghosts. I can't see you doing anything that would provoke one."
Dammit you're getting further away from answers, not closer. "And how long does it take one to rise?"
"At least three days and three nights for the souls to disassociate from each other. Was that what you were worried about? Before that the beast soul is too tied to the reason soul to get up to anything by itself. Always."
That unpleasant wrenching in your gut is the familiar feeling of being right when you'd rather you weren't. "Always? What if it happens sooner?"
"It can't," he shakes his head, "believe me, if it could I'd have a much more dangerous job. Even so I get them sometimes. You can ward or entrap them behind a line of salt. They can't stand sunlight and can only move at night. Like to hide inside things during the day, usually their own body but if it's gone that's not always the end of them. If the body is entirely surrounded by sunlight they can't escape and might dissolve but it's almost always by laying the body to proper rest or finding justice for them that they find peace. Don't underestimate the beast soul - my good friends here," he nods down at the large black rat currently eating seeds out of his hand, "are incapable of reason, hence the failure of the infirmary, but they're very intelligent."
Intelligence + Occult = 3 successes. Got a notion!
Oh. Oh, shit. "Wait, you say it dissociates from the higher soul, and that's what makes the time limit?"
"That's right, it's much like-"
"So if something bad happened to the higher soul it could happen right away? Say it got lost or stolen-"
He stops dead and you can swear you see him shiver. He looks down his spectacles at you, and in place of his kindly and eccentric twinkle his expression is very dark, and very, very concerned.
"That, my dear, would take real power. Someone who can turn and twist the souls of men is beyond the ken of you and I, I'm afraid." His voice is stone-heavy as he turns back to his rats. "For your own sake, keep it that way."
Well. That's a thing.
You had to fight a hungry ghost today and yet it's somehow still less annoying than your own front door. The caldera of Gem protects it from the worst of the storm's wind but a portion of the wind has slipped down and got trapped, fated to chase its own tail around the city until it finally runs out of breath. Right now though it's having great fun trying to wrench your own front door out of your grip as you do your best to open it just enough to slip inside. If it catches and throws it open all the way you're not sure you can even get it closed tonight and might seriously consider undoing the hinges and letting the wind have its prize.
No. Not today nature, you uncooperative bastard. You squeeze in through the gap and quickly pull it behind, snapping the latch down before it gets any ideas about abandoning you for its new windy love. Safe at home at last a tense exhaustion stored up in your body finally lets itself uncoil. You sink your head against the smooth wood and take some slow breaths.
You lie to yourself and blame this wave of fatigue on all the wading through water you've had to do today. Gem has no place for an investigator with jangly nerves, so you can't be that lady right now.
Warm food and a drink will make everything better. Opening the grate on your hearth you're relieved to see there's still a warm glow among the coal. It'd been so good to get a fireplace you'd played around with it for a whole week and learned that if you layered the leftover ash on top it'd hold a flame much better. It saved relighting it every day, just one of those life changing discoveries that you couldn't charge anyone money for. Probably half of Gem already knows about it and has never bothered to tell each other, though how they can keep such exciting discoveries to themselves completely eludes you.
As the tin kettle and buckwheat balls warm up you hang up your coat and empty out the pockets. The golden lion headed key glimmers bright in the flames of the fire, it's pretty to look at but turning it in your hand reveals it is sadly free of conveniently helpful engravings that explain its purpose. You drop it back into the pocket for later, already getting annoyed at how the flared cross end of it catches on the top of the pocket every single time.
Int(4) + Linguistics(3) = 3 successes. A solid start
The code book holds a lot more promise, page upon page thick with small swirling loops joined with immaculately penned strokes. You start with the obvious, that each symbol is just an easy swap for a letter but it quickly becomes obvious that this isn't the case. There's a lot more potential letters than you're used to and the words would be all the wrong size. Some spiral across almost the whole length of the page while others are a quick simple stroke. There is a pattern, you see enough repeats and grouping of symbols it's clear there is a language at play here, but it doesn't follow any of the normal rules of writing.
Int(4) + Linguistics(3) = 2 successes. Struggling
A few hours later the tea is cold. A refilled kettle and a second batch of buckwheat balls are on the cook, a few dates sliced up and mashed into them to give a bit of flavour. Your notes are spread all across the table, as haphazard as the book itself and yet very little has been accomplished. You've ruled out a lot of things it can't be by simple deduction but frustratingly nothing it can be. This is a code he wrote often, so a particularly complicated cipher would be too time consuming. He carried it on him so he must have read it and the pen that came with it suggested he added to it too. This thankfully rules out any system where you put something into a code and then recode it again, a system that you don't quite understand but sounds well beyond your abilities to break.
The kettle has finally warmed up in the background and rattles as the steam billows out, but you let it hiss away to itself.
You aren't going to let words defeat you so easily: you'd gotten into reading the hard way. Fascinated by all the secrets held up in books you couldn't understand your carrypack had always been home to a few dogeared paper novels when you were younger. If someone spotted them and tried to bully you for trying to be fancy, you always had the fallback excuse that it made a good firelighter. Which was true, but the real truth was you spent a lot of time up on roofs trying to sound the words on the page out. Making noises that you thought matched the letters and trying to keep it consistent in a long, rambling stretch of grunts and moans that if anyone had seen you do would probably have gotten you locked up and checked for evil spirits. The words on the page didn't work like you thought, but you'd gotten close eventually, able to mumble strangely through the book and slowly unpick the strange other rules that governed your sounds and let them be nailed down onto a page properly. Possibly the first mystery you'd ever solved and easily the most satisfying.
The hiss of the kettle isn't going to stop and with a sigh you go to shut the thing up. What has no mouth but still sings? That was always a shitty riddle, Kettles didn't sing they hissed.
Perception(3) + Linguistics(3) + Night Time Bonuses (3) = 4 successes. Enough to just get us over the line!
No wonder so few people learn to read on their own if they don't even listen to sounds properly…. Oh. Oh surely it can't be that easy?
A frantically made cup of tea later and you're willing to forgive the kettle for all past and future hissing crimes. The code isn't letters and words at all, it's sounds! Well of course letters are meant to just be sounds in theory, but they don't really follow that rule or reading would have been so much easier to pick up. Cheshago's code is the reading you'd tried to do, each flick a clipped noise and each loop a rolling note. On their own confusing and meaningless but taken as a whole you can pack a whole sentence into a single flowing line.
Int(4) + Linguistics(3) + Night Time Bonuses (3) = 4 successes. But going to use a little kick of willpower to get us up to 5.That'll do it!
It's still a bitch to crack and as words begin to form out of the mess you run into another problem: you've a suspicion Cheshago had an accent and without knowing what it was you can't really tell how he talked. This would make the code a little unique to each person and maddening to people trying to decipher it by conventional methods, not to mention if he'd used another language than Firetongue you'd have had no chance of unpicking it. A code that works on any language, but gives the appearance of being unique and inscrutable. Clever.
Night has set long ago but you're too into this to stop and have moved the desk over to the hearth so you can strain your eyes doing the last of your notes by the warm glow of the coals. It is a notebook, so even what you can understand still has the problem that you're missing context Chesago would have but what you can pick out is tantalising.
Wave Crashes Against the Rocks is the Guild's leader in Gem and the one who you have a Guild contract with right now. Your conversation with them had been brief, but it's easy to pick their long name out of the text once you know what to look for, Cheshago certainly mentions them often enough. She'd been apparently bothering him for reports he'd been putting off and from the tone of it for not entirely good reasons. He sounded frustrated he even has to answer to her as most his comments come just after she asks him to do something, you don't want to disrespect the dead but they're some pretty whiny complaints.
Diamond in Your Knapsack is another name that features a lot and you've a vague idea they're also in the Guild somewhere. Cheshago has some kind of promise or deal with them, but frustratingly he never goes into the details. He's stalling with them as much as he is Wave Crashes Against the Rocks, but clearly feels more confident as his tone here is more teasing. Like he's dangling a juicy plum right in front of Diamond's face and enjoying their futile attempts to snap at it.
There's no mention of the key anywhere you can find, but there is plenty of talk of The Vault. The Vault is the subject of a lot of ideas of Cheshago's and all seem to fall through shortly after. He's tried bargaining with the Vault, bribing it, briefly considered forcing his way in and all have failed. His last plan was trying to visit the Midnight Tales and see if they could help him steal the Words that Would Open the Way. It's so nice to be reading a language that allows for such a large amount of emphasis on words or you'd think that's just a metaphor rather than an actual thing.
The very last line he wrote before his death was "Ten Feathers may know more than they let on, I should be wary". That person again? Why would she be investigating him before his death and after?
Int(4) + Bureaucracy(3) = 5 successes. No night time bonus as this wasn't the focus but absolutely smashed it anyway.
The rest of the notebook is filled with the more mundane business he dealt with, but that doesn't mean you can't take an interest. The Guild are clearly far more hungry for Gem's firedust trade than it is the mineral wealth, but they're going about it by buying up as much critical infrastructure and goods as they can and then sitting on it. The dancing around the Despot's auditors' suspicions makes for a complicated to follow dance, but you get a good idea of the various shell games Cheshago was involved with that let the Guild trade in areas they shouldn't have a hand in and claim stakes in things that were very much not theirs to barter with. A dangerous game to be playing, anyone caught out doing this would be finding themselves staked out in the sun in short order with as many generations of their family as the Despot could find, though right now he'd have to settle for drowning them.
Maybe the rest is more relevant to your immediate investigation, but learning that last bit is easily the most dangerous thing you've done today. A day of ever increasing peril, hopefully this isn't going to become a habit.
A day over!
We begin again in the morning, though there isn't going to be much sleep for poor Sharell. This round will take us up to the mid-day if all goes well.
It's another pick Two Topics with the ability to pick as many options for each topic as you like unless it says otherwise, same as last time!
[ ] - The GUILD-
-[ ] - Renegotiate your Contract with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. She did not tell you about killer ghosts.
-[ ] - Find out who Diamond in your Knapsack is and their role in the guild. Why was Cheshago messing about with them?
-[ ] - Get details on Cheshago's reasons for being at the Midnight Tales.
-[ ] - Press Wave Crashes Against the Rocks for details on what's really going on. Clearly they know more than they're saying, you don't have to tell her you got proof she was keeping an eye on it, but you do know for sure she was.
-[ ] - Blackmail them. You have dirt on them now, maybe you can force them to cooperate with you fully.
-[ ] - Turn in the Code Book. Hope they don't realise you've worked it out.
-[ ] - Turn in the Gold Lion Key
[ ] - MIDNIGHT TALES-
-[ ] - Go back and check if the ghost is dead and Raicho is okay.
-[ ] - Go back and yell at the guy who locked you in. A lot. Then get him to talk.
-[ ] - Investigate them legally. Ask contacts around the city about them. Gather rumour.
-[ ] - Investigate them illegally. Break into offices, find out info.
-[ ] - Press them to tell you about The Vault. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.
-[ ] - Get them to tell you about the Words that Would Open the Way. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.
-[ ] - Turn in the Guild Code Book. Maybe they'll give you something for it?
-[ ] - Turn in the Gold Lion Key.
GOLD LION KEY-
PICK ONE
[ ] - You got an old associate working in the grand libraries of House Iblan who will happily do a little research on the Key in exchange for smuggling them in some cheroots. They're not allowed to smoke. It's a tragic existence.
[ ] - Go get it appraised by trustworthy but disreputable sorts. They'll know what it's worth and what its made of at the very least.
[ ] - You found a missing cat for an Antiquitary from overseas about a month back, maybe they're still here? If anyone knows about strange things it's them.
GOLD FLAKES-
PICK ONE
[ ] - Gold and silver is House Iblan's trade. But you have evidence in Cheshago's notes that the Guild is trading it under the table now. Get their help in finding out more.
[ ] - You got Cheshago's notes, spend a little extra time working out who he got the gold item from then go pay them a visit directly.
[ ] LOST SOUL AT THE SUN MARKET (The Sun Market is where the majority of Gem's illegal activity happens, completely in the open. It's also a good place to find most of your useful contacts.)
-[ ] - A lost soul sounds like it would be awfully conspicuous, or at least the sort of thing someone would know about. Discreetly ask around the Sun Market about it.
-[ ] - Soul Stealers and Dream Weavers. That's what they call the people who live far down south. Only the worst of the worst would actually admit to trading with them, but then what is the Sun Market for if you can't admit there that you do deal in things you shouldn't and it's all on sale for the right price.
-[ ] - Getting completely torched might not have killed a Hungry Ghost? You should get yourself better armed.
-[ ] - Stabbing a body relentlessly, painting the scene in blood. Killers like that are going to be infamous, asking around you contacts might give you a good list of who it might be and just how much trouble you're in.
THE DESPOT-
[ ] - You got proof the Guild is surely going beyond what he'd find acceptable. Present your findings and let him bring fire and blood.
TEN FEATHERS-
PICK ONE
[ ] - The Midnight Tales merchant mentioned her briefly. Who is she and why is she also investigating this? Time to go ask around.
[ ] - Cut the bullshit. They were the last thing mentioned in Cheshago's notes. Let's just go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
The sun has properly risen by the time you're prepared for another outing, your plans all squared away in your mind. It's far from the first all-nighter you've pulled, though you'll have bags under your eyes you know it won't be until tonight that waves of drowsiness start to hit. The dull roar of rain on your rooftop has abated as you grab your mostly-still-damp coat and get back to business.
There's still plenty of water to slosh through and as much as you'd love to go buy a few jugs and fill them up to the brim, making good time this morning seems more valuable. It's a shame, when the sun gets high in the sky Lake Gem will start evaporating and the whole city will be bathed in a haze of shimmering vapor as the most free water Gem has seen in months disappears into the sky. It'll be pretty but it'll also be sweaty as hell and humid enough to make a Gem native feel like a roasted pork bun.
Which means your first course of business is to track down the gold item that was stolen, or at least figure out what it is. Cheshago has the business transaction recorded in his journal all nice and neat so if all goes well this'll be the easiest leg of the investigation.
...
You're pretty sure it violates some unspoken rule of Creation for a man to lie in his private, coded journal. Oh, there's a record of the transaction and the merchant - apparently he paid a lot for this thing to someone very respectable, but the address is a picked-over ruin of a house that's been abandoned at least a year. In a drier bit of rafter there's a nest with a small brown owl that keeps poking its head out and staring at you, probably hoping that it can drive you off with its gaze. You stare right back, hoping that you can stare right through it and thereby discover its secrets.
Surprisingly this fails and you resort to picking through the washed-out ruins instead, turning over board and thatch and shingle to see if there's something you can work with. As luck would have it, there is, in a thoroughly shaded spot is another little creature but this one could well be more talkative. An orphan with greasy, tousled brown hair and wide eyes (he looks a bit like an owl himself, if you're being honest) jumps up from the mostly-still-damp rags he was sleeping under with a speed that would do his ancestors proud.
As one of said ancestors (at least in spirit), you know exactly how to handle this and before he can bolt you've offered a little something wrapped in waxed paper: a bar of nuts stuck together with crystallized honey. It's a minor miracle it didn't get too squashed during your fight last night, but as gadgets go it's about as expensive as a bomb and vastly more useful. He looks at it intensely, making a hasty calculation between candy and safety.
(2 Charisma + 4 Investigation + 3 Massive Bribe = 4 successes. Eating out of the palm of our hand.)
As the two of you sit in a ruined windowsill and speculate together on what color the flowers after the rain will be, you can tell he's the intelligent sort of street rat because he's eating it very slowly instead of scarfing it all down at once. It's elementary: first of all you want to savor something like that no matter how hungry you are, but also you don't want to offend your inquisitive benefactor by stashing half of it away for later while they're still looking - that half might trade for an awful lot of bread if you're savvy. This is a kid with a future ahead of him. Still, the bond of trust between you isn't nearly strong enough for him to tell you his real name, so you don't ask.
You describe Cheshago to the kid and he wrinkles his nose and sniffles.
"I've seen him. He's a bad man," he says, "you helping him?"
You shake your head, "I'm just trying to find out what he bought. Something big, heavy and gold. He paid a lot for it, so if he was here, somebody around here got very rich, very quickly."
He scowls, coming to a conclusion about what you're after, "we ain't no tomb robbers." It's a good catch, stealing from the wealthy dead is something everyone down on their luck considers at least once. If you can get past just how viscerally wrong it is though then there's still the issue that the punishment for being caught stealing in Gem is a truly unpleasant time. Stealing from the dead is a step up even from that, you won't just be staked out for the sun to take if they catch you. They'll take you back to the tomb, torture you until they feel the dead will be suitably appeased and then seal whatever twitching bits of you are still alive back up there with them.
"Not that sort of big, heavy and gold," you laugh a little uneasily and show him with your hands the big, boxy dimensions of the thing you're after, "it's about this size, definitely gold and something else fine. If it were all gold it'd smash through floors just sitting down. It'd…"
You trail off as you notice his expression. His eyes are wide, and he nods. "That's the old soldiers' tale, I know who you need to see."
...
The boy leads you to a ramshackle collection of hovels and tents in the process of being patched up after the storm. Without having had the benefit of an indoor hearth people are trying and mostly failing to restart coal fires. In this early morning goats are being milked into dented buckets and dogs are running wild and free as the gods intended. You can pick out a number of family units but the people here look hard, with steely gazes and strong muscles and not a few blades and spears and weapons that look like they've been picked off a battlefield.
"Wait here," your guide tells you, and you sit down next to a girl a little older than your temporary companion who is trying to mould clay into a humanoid shape.
"I'm making a soldier," she explains to you, "he's going to be tough and fierce and never get tired."
You smile. He might someday be all of those things, but for now he mostly looks lumpy and mashed. People are keeping a careful eye on you, but as you roll up your sleeves take a bit of spare clay out of the soggy mass she's pulling from and start to roll it into your own soldier, your watchers visibly relax.
"You have to roll and mix and knead it thoroughly," you say, demonstrating turning an inconsistent mess into a more homogenous clay, "otherwise it won't stay together as well."
You still make a bit of a mess, but you get into the task and it ends up a good kind of mess and the two of you finish a pair of passable terracotta warriors.
The man who approaches you has a long beard and the sort of lean muscle you associate with soldiery. He has got bags under his brown eyes that could fit a house inside though and even though there's a good sword at his hip his long tunic is ragged. He also walks with a noticeable limp, and you can see the outline of a long, jagged scar up his leg.
"Help your aunt milk the goats, Hasa," he says, and the girl sets down her terracotta warrior very carefully and runs off with a trailing, "yes, uncle!"
"Your niece?" you cock your head to one side. They don't look a single thing alike.
"We are the Old Brothers. Every woman here is her aunt, every man her uncle." He touches his hand to his chest. "Mishri. A soldier once, like most of us. Now I am what passes for a leader here."
You press your fist to your chin, "is she looking to become an artisan? Pottery's a better life than most get."
"It's for her father. We lost him not long ago,"
Oh. Oh, well, that casts a different color on things.
"She intends to put all her heart into making them. She'll dry them out in the sun and say prayers over them and bury them with him. In the next life they'll be an army to protect him. Fearless. Tireless. Loyal comrades for all time, like our brother deserves. Would you like to put yours with hers?"
You examine your handiwork - someone could maybe sell it on a street corner but as a memorial for the fallen it seems like trash. "I didn't know him."
He sits down next to you, takes your hand and appraises it too, chuckling a little as he does. "You put your heart into it too, I think. Can't help yourself. I know how it is. Without that connection it won't be as loyal, but I think it will do no harm."
You hand over your soldier, and he puts it with the other. Two tireless clay sentinels, baking in the morning sun. It's not a terrible start for an army.
"Now," he says, "what brings you to our little camp?"
The name Cheshago is like throwing burning pitch on what was a cozy scene a second ago. Nobody draws their blades, but the tension is like a metal wire stretched over a doorstep - you're going to have to tread very carefully about this.
"He had it," Mishri says with a low rumble in his voice, "a great chest lined with gold. He didn't buy it. We found it out in the desert. We dug it up. He stole it from us. He had one of our brothers' throats cut." He has to take a second to stop the trembling in his hands, and he won't look you in the eye. "If you see him, you tell him that a debt is owed in blood."
You shake your head. "I don't know who to, but he's paid it to someone. The number of stab wounds the body had was..."
Intelligence+Lore = 6 successes. Yeah, there might be something there.
Your eyes narrow. "...like someone thought a debt was owed in blood and wanted to get enough of it."
Mishri shakes his head. A little too quickly, you think. He didn't have to think about that one, or didn't want to. "That is not possible. My people are old soldiers, not assassins. We would challenge him to a duel to display his cowardice for all the world to see, not do this in secret."
"But you know that's how he died? I didn't mention whether it was assassination or not," you stand and circle around to face him, trying to get a good look at his face. It's not strictly true that someone who won't look you in the eye inevitably has something to hide, but the sketchiness of this guy has jumped at least three stories in the last minute.
"If he had died in the marketplace I would have known about it," Mishri says angrily, standing to face you. Steel in his eyes. Steel in yours. "You would see us dancing in the streets and wishing him good fortune in a next life that is unkind to men of silver and lies."
"If he stole it, why not ask for justice?" you ask. You're pretty sure you know the answer, but you want to hear him say it.
"I marched under a banner not long ago." Mishri says, putting a hand on your shoulder, "I swore oaths to powerful men and fought their battles. We faced beasts and worse together, side by side. Good men and women died for the promises that there would one day be a future for us better than scrabbling in the dirt. When I took my armour and my blade and the last of my pay home I saw all those who had not made it to the end like I had. I saw them cast aside with a pittance. No care for the unfortunate. I said to myself, Mishri what brave thing did I do that these did not? What wounds did I suffer that they have not had felt worse? The rich, they only reward those who have been useful to them. No care for honour or debts but their own."
He lets go of your shoulder and steps back - you'd swear his eyes are a little wetter. "If we want Justice we must make it for each other. There's no justice for old soldiers or those marked by war in the courts of the rich. We followed their rules once, but we learn from our mistakes."
"It worked out for you though," you say, taking a step back while you can. That speech sounds like one he's given before but you aren't going to push him that far, just in case.
"Did it?" he says, "my friends are dead and I've no memories I care to remember. Even now the rich take from us, their greed is more important to them than our lives. We will get our due someday, but we will not become them to do it."
He says it with conviction, but the bitterness behind everything he's said is plain to see. He might not be doing this for greed, but people have killed for plenty of other reasons and there's a grudge here that you don't think would have been left to lie for long.
"I have to keep searching, take care Mishri," you say quickly, uncomfortable to be this close to a wound so raw.
"I take care of the others, they will take care of me. That's how it works here Sharell, the living must do what the dead cannot."
It's a nice sentiment and you're not going to push back with so little to go on, so leaving it there seems the right thing to do. You get pulled into helping a little with the cooking, then slip out while you can before you spend the whole day here, leaving the Old Brothers and Mishri to deal with the gaps left in their lives.
The streets are starting to look more alive now the rain has gone as people untether miraculously unharmed stalls or search hopefully for the missing pieces that have long since sailed away to start a new life elsewhere. You'd think the humidity would slow people down but all the free water from the skies has actually buoyed people's spirits immensely. Without having to pay out for their week's allotment of water everyone has a little more money in their pockets and if they want to spend it or change whose pockets it belongs in, neither side is going to miss out the chance just because of a sticky heat.
You are having similar thoughts yourself as you make your way to the building that the Guild has made their home. Usually you can pick it out from the endless rows of similar looking square offices by the Guild Seal they've painted on the wall, a tilted white rectangle on a black circle, but today you have a much more delicious way of knowing which is theirs. Their lack of native experience is on full display today, because unlike most of the big merchants they must have thought it a waste to pay out for a raised spot and now a bucket chain of hired hands is having to bail them out.
Carpets squelching underfoot you wrinkle your nose at the powerful smell of damp, which has driven out all but the most determined of petitioners. Breathing slowly through your mouth you wait them out until you can get waved through to the boss, citing incredibly important business. What is new is the two burly guards you have to go through to get there, who got a very entertaining pat down. Pretty much every part of your coat they touch has some kind of lump in it and they give up before even getting half way down and tell you take it off. You argue that as an investigator, it'd be beyond the pale to go through your pockets.
Manipulation 3 + Presence 1 = 1 Success. Failed
They are having none of it and insist you either empty your pockets or go without it. You're not at all keen on letting them get at what you've got hidden away in there and if you leave the coat they will absolutely search through it, so you're at an impasse. You tell them again flatly no and they draw steel in response.
Manipulation 3 + Bureaucracy 3 + Law 1 = 5 successes! Yes that'll do it.
With swords trained on you, you carefully reach into your pocket and pull out a small roll of paper. Unfurling it you turn it round to show them your contract with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks, their current boss. You explain patiently that they're pointing swords at Wave's personal investigator and also asking to rifle through her personal investigator's things. Things which are no doubt full of guild secrets. Personal secrets and personally you'd think twice before messing with that.
Sometimes it takes a big legal hammer to get through thick skulls, but eventually they get the hint and let you through. You wave the contract like a ward against evil spirits the whole way in and then slap it right down onto Wave's desk.
"To investigate the circumstances leading to the death of Guild Prince Cheshago and bring those responsible to the attention of the Guild" you recite from the contract, "Did I miss a passage about being nearly murdered by ghosts?"
Wave Crashes Against the Rocks doesn't look up from the forms she's filling out, treating your outburst like it hadn't even happened. Straw blonde hair, not a hint of a tan, tall even for Southerner and a soft lilting accent puts her completely out of place on Gem's streets and you half suspect this isn't by accident. She's an incredibly memorable sight and she certainly doesn't need the help, quick witted and well read she can fascinate a person on any aspect of trade. She'd convinced you that the Guild were the best pick to take on the Despot's law after all and better yet she hadn't been wrong.
"There is no passage about ghosts" she says as she drains her pen into a glass inkwell and sets it aside, folding her hands in front of her. "We asked you to investigate the dead, not consort with them."
It's a strange response, you'd expected her to spar with you here but instead she's taking this like you've had a slight misunderstanding.
"I didn't say consort, I said nearly murdered," you correct her, taking a chair since one clearly isn't being offered and locking eyes with your current employer.
Charisma 2 + Presence 1 = 1 success. Not a chance
"Guild Prince Cheshago had only been dead a few hours, it would be unreasonable to expect we'd have any idea he would rise again as a Hungry Ghost so quickly," she says, staring back placidly.
"You know that already then?" you say with a questioning tone that dips ever so lightly into accusatory. You're having to restart your brain as to how you'd expected this whole conversation to go and it's sent you for a spin.
"Yes, when one of our own is trying to murder people we are very quickly notified, especially if they're meant to be dead. Fortunately a house guard had decided to lay him to a rather permanent rest with a flame piece," Wave Crashes Against the Rock replies in a cool, lilting tone. If her plan is to annoy you with it then it's certainly working.
Intelligence 4 + Investigation 4 = 2 Successes. Not a great success, but enough
You bite back the annoyance as you realise what she's doing. She's treating this as a negotiation and one in which she intends to give up nothing she doesn't have to. Wave Crashes Against the Rocks is the name you give to a girl who's going to grow up stubborn enough to thrive dealing with the cutthroat traders of Gem. You aren't enjoying that stubbornness being turned your way.
"Then why haven't you called me in?" you ask. Picking apart her story is the only way you can think of getting out of here with the clothes on your back. You're fairly sure you can't out negotiate her but you can burn the whole thing down and make her pay for the damages. "Surely something that shocking would have you dragging me in by my ankles."
"You're here aren't you? We just had to wait, I have plenty of other business to conduct," she says with a slight shrug of her shoulders. "An admiration for your skills is why I chose to hire you, but even I wouldn't have expected you to solve this in a single night."
You snort at the backpatting compliment, if Wave thinks patting your ego is the way to deal with you then she is sorely mistaken. Nobody in Gem works for praise.
"So you've business more important than the death of a Guild Prince and the burning down of the crime scene? If you wanted to lie to your investigator Wave, you should have hired one a bit more stupid," you say, resting an elbow on the table and your head on the back of the fist. A simple way to show you're tired of her shit already.
"Right now the idea is sounding appealing," Wave says with a long sigh for punctuation. She pushes her hair back and then gets up from her seat and comes round the table to you, sitting on the edge so she can look down at you. This you consider to be foul play, your pockets might be deep but they don't have a stepladder so you can see her eye to eye with her.
"So my clever little investigator, what have you learned?"
Manipulation 4 + Presence 4 = 3 success. She succeeds in moving past the murder ghost issue, for now.
You tip back on your chair to try match her gaze, but there's no denying the woman is imposing and you hate yourself for being a little impressed. At least she's not being annoyingly timid at you anymore.
"The murderer can mess around with souls somehow. They took Cheshago's higher soul with them, bloodied his corpse and this led to him rising as a vengeful spirit against the first person to mess with it."
Her expression darkens and you can see her knuckles whiten as she squeezes the edge of the table.
"So Guild secrets are being stolen on top of murder," Wave says, clearly far more annoyed over the first than the second.
Manipulation 3 + Bureaucracy 3 + Law 1 = 1 success. No luck
"On top of," you nod, trying to steer this back to your own problems instead of hers. "So that's outside the remit of my contract. Be extra to find that out."
She shakes her head, tossing that idea away casually, "it clearly says you're to bring those responsible to our attention Sharell, we can then take it from there."
This isn't going great, Wave had beaten down your initial fury and now she's just toying around with you. Such is the power of a Guild Prince it seems, you decide to save a little face and keep it moving rather than run head first into this brick wall of a woman anymore.
"Be a lot easier to find anything out if I knew why Cheshago was at the Midnight Tales, you rushed me over there without explaining that detail."
"We're looking into getting into business with the dream merchants. He was just making introductions."
"So just a talk? Friendly chat, nothing else." you say with an outright impetulant smirk. No harm in making it clear this is a trap, all the better to put her off guard.
Manipulation 4 + Presence 4 = 3 success. She pulls it off too.
"If there was anything else I wasn't aware of it," she says so straight faced you can almost believe her. Years of trading experience has left her with a control over her emotions that Gamblers would bet anything to try to get a hold of and then also lose.
You'd resolve to never bet against Wave here, but you already are and you're losing badly. Well, when you got a bad hand you either fold or go all in. You push the metaphorical tokens across the table and go for broke.
"And was Diamond in your Knapsack aware of it?" you say with the smuggest grin you can pull off right now, "Because it seems he knows more than you do and you're meant to be running this place."
Manipulation 3 + Presence 1 + Coded Notebook Hints 2 = 3 Successes. This barely succeeds and it does hit a current intimacy of hers. Also hey we worked out where stunts come from, clues!
"You're working for him?" she snaps all too quick and you just know you've got her finally. You just smile wide and after a moment to gather herself she slips off the table and stops the on high stare down she was going for.
"No of course not, I'm a good judge of character and you're not the sort for betrayal."
You're not sure that's a real compliment either considering her record so far, but that one you'll take.
"And Diamond is?" you needle.
"Diamond in your Knapsack," she says, using the full name despite you trying to make it more casual. She really doesn't like this guy. "Could only betray those stupid enough to trust him in the first place. A snake of the highest caliber, but a useful one. Do you consider him a suspect?"
You nod. You didn't until about a second ago, but she's giving you every reason to do so.
"So you'll want to investigate the Guild," she says, putting a hand to the back of your chair. Legs for days notwithstanding you're quite sick of the tall games, so you change your seat to the table itself and refuse to throw her a rope to pull herself out of this conversation.
"You realise the problem with this, of course," she adds after a pause you were quite happy to make awkward.
You nod again, understanding the problem immediately. You've already done that. Though she probably means she doesn't want you to do that.
"I trust your character, but trust can only go so far." Wave says, "I can't condone you investigating us."
Intelligence 4 + Bureaucracy 3 + Law 1 = 2 successes. Gonna throw in a Willpower here to make it 3 and get that pass before we walk away with nothing.
"Then you've just made completing my contract impossible. Asking me to investigate a murder where a Guild Member might be the culprit then forbidding me from investigating Guild Members," you tut, shaking your head. "A bad faith contract I bet I could get the full payment for, if I'm willing to take it to the courts."
The courts are just the Despot and whatever he decides, but in this case you feel pretty confident he'd pick your side. He doesn't like the Guild as it is, so them jerking people around he'd have absolutely no time for.
"Sharell! I'd never have expected you could be so ruthless," she says sounding genuinely impressed.
"Murder ghosts really focus the mind. Also I don't like a mystery I'm not allowed to solve."
"This is sensitive, what would it take you to keep this a secret? A secret that, I might add, if I hear anywhere outside these walls I will have you hunted down to the ends of Creation by things far worse than murderous ghosts."
You believe her and you name your price, even going so far as to demand it be paid up front. Honestly you're so intrigued by all this you'd have taken a lot less, but you're not in a particularly charitable mood right now.
"Acceptable." Wave says, quickly writing up a new contract right there and then and passing it over to you. It's simple enough that you'd feel safe working off it so you sign it and slide it back. She hits it with the seal so hard the thump could probably be heard all the way to Chiaroscuro.
"I hired you Sharell because I can't trust anyone in the Guild right now. What Cheshago had is important enough that the Guild's broken apart here. Diamond in the Knapsack has his people, I have mine," she says each word like a hissing drip of acid, "you need to find me enough proof that I can bury the bastard before I turn up dead and you become an unfortunate loose end."
"And what did Cheshago have?"
"Now that," she says, "Is the real question isn't it? I'm suddenly paying you an awful lot more to go find out. So get going."
You feel a little guilty sneaking out there with half the answers she wants already, but you wouldn't have gotten anything for them right now. Wave Crashes Against the Rocks might even have found a way to make you pay for keeping it quiet. Getting out of there with a little payout and the clothes on your back is as good a win as any when you tangle with a Guild Prince.
We're half way through the day and Sharell's got it in her to keep going so press on with the choices!
Also we've decided that we're replacing Stunts with Clues. Any action Sharell takes where information she has found out or where she has a clue that is pertinent to the situation she'll get a bonus on. The more relevant to the task the higher the bonus.
First up two mandatory choices (these two are approval vote-style; you can choose as many as you like, but it's the one with the most votes in the end that'll happen).
What did you renegotiate from the Guild?
[ ] - More money is fine. Money talks.
[ ] - This job has to be worth at least two favours. You're paying one back, but you could use a spare to call in.
[ ] - Firedust. The Guild has some, you could certainly put it to use.
[ ] - A Bodyguard. If things are going to try to kill you, they can spare someone to help stop that.
[ ] - Status. If you're going to be investigating for the Guild you want an official title within it beyond "Contractee".
Your recent brush with being forced to empty out your pockets has given you second thoughts about carrying the Codebook. You've got what you need out of it, but it might be useful to quickly reference later in case something comes up that you hadn't thought of, or as a bargaining chip.
What do you do with it?
[ ] - They'll pry it out of your cold dead hands. Keep the codebook on you.
[ ] - Keep it a secret, keep it safe. Hide the codebook inside your house.
[ ] - X marks the spot. You know plenty of hidey-holes in Gem, some of them even in use. Hide the codebook in one of your caches.
[ ] - Trust a rat. Leave the codebook with Niall and his kin, no one hides things better than Gem's true vermin.
[ ] - Leave the codebook somewhere Wave Crashes Against the Rocks will find it. She doesn't have to know you had it.
[ ] - Burn after reading. It's too dangerous to have it found. Destroy the codebook.
As for what's next in the investigation, you get the idea by now. Pick Two Topics with the ability to pick as many options for each topic as you like unless it says otherwise.
[ ] - DIAMOND IN YOUR KNAPSACK
-[ ] - The Guild is at war with itself? You've trader friends, find out how a mercantile war would be fought.
-[ ] - Diamond in your Knapsack and Cheshago had a deal, confront him about it and shake something loose.
-[ ] - Diamond in your Knapsack wants a war with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. Pretend to be on his side, find out what you can.
-[ ] - Diamond in your Knapsack wants a war with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. See what you can get for actually switching sides.
-[ ] - Blackmail him. You have dirt on him, maybe you can force him to cooperate with you fully.
-[ ] - What is with that name anyway? Find out the story.
[ ] - MIDNIGHT TALES
-[ ] - Raicho killed the ghost! Go thank her for saving your skin.
-[ ] - Go back and yell at the guy who locked you in. A lot. Then get him to talk.
-[ ] - Investigate them legally. Ask contacts around the city about them. Gather rumour.
-[ ] - Investigate them illegally. Break into offices, find out what you can.
-[ ] - Press them to tell you about The Vault. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.
-[ ] - Press them to tell you about The Golden Chest. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.
-[ ] - Get them to tell you about the Words that Would Open the Way. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.
-[ ] - Turn in the Guild Code Book. Maybe they'll give you something for it?
-[ ] - Turn in the Gold Lion Key.
[ ] - THE GILDED CHEST AND THE GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
Bonus: Knowing about the associated chest will now improve chances in this line.
-[ ] - You got an old associate working in the grand libraries of House Iblan who will happily do a little research on these items in exchange for smuggling them in some cheroots. They're not allowed to smoke. It's a tragic existence.
-[ ] - Go get the key appraised by trustworthy but disreputable sorts. They'll know what it's worth and what its made of at the very least.
-[ ] - You found a missing cat for an Antiquary from overseas about a month back, maybe they're still here? If anyone knows about strange golden items it'd be them.
[ ] - LOST SOUL AT THE SUN MARKET
The Sun Market is where the majority of Gem's illegal activity happens, completely in the open. It's also a good place to find most of your useful contacts. -[ ] - A lost soul sounds like it would be awfully conspicuous, or at least the sort of thing someone would know about. Discreetly ask around the Sun Market about it.
-[ ] - Soul Stealers and Dream Weavers. That's what they call the people who live far down south. Only the worst of the worst would actually admit to trading with them, but then what is the Sun Market for if you can't admit there that you do deal in things you shouldn't and it's all on sale for the right price.
-[ ] - Getting completely torched might not have killed a Hungry Ghost? You should get yourself better armed.
-[ ] - Stabbing a body relentlessly, painting the scene in blood. Killers like that are going to be infamous, asking around you contacts might give you a good list of who it might be and just how much trouble you're in.
-[ ] - A Golden Chest has to have gathered some rumours about it, what are they?
[ ] - OLD BROTHERS
-[ ] - Letting their dogs run wild and free notwithstanding, these guys are suspicious as hell. Find out more about them - discreetly. Ask around. Find out what you're really dealing with.
-[ ] - Use diplomacy. They look like they could use a hand up in the world - help them out, build bridges, make friends so they'll let you in on their secrets.
-[ ] - Sneak into their camp at night and see what you can turn up.
-[ ] - Suspicious. As. Hell. Get Waves to hire some mercenaries to harass their camp, while you take advantage of the distraction to find what you can find.
-[ ] - J'accuse! They are clearly the murderers. Get Waves to bribe some of the Despot's men to ransack their camp and drive them out of Gem. (This will override other Brothers-targeted actions.)
[ ] - THE DESPOT
This option will not be available if the codebook is destroyed. -[ ] - You got proof the Guild is surely going beyond what he'd find acceptable. Present your findings and let him bring fire and blood.
[ ] - THE VAULT
-[ ] - The Old Brothers found the gold chest at a dig outside the city. Could that be where the Vault is also? Hire a cheap horse and go poke around.
[ ] - TEN FEATHERS
PICK ONE
-[ ] - The Midnight Tales merchant mentioned her briefly. Who is she and why is she also investigating this? Time to go ask around.
-[ ] - Cut the bullshit. They were the last thing mentioned in Cheshago's notes. Let's just go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
And last up! We've missed one night, but things are still heating up.
BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL-
[ ] - Sleep
[ ] - It's too hot and sticky to sleep anyway, press on.
Take Key to Antiquarian 4
Business at Soul Market 2
Investigate Diamond 1
Ingratiate Self to Diamond 1
Aggressively Investigate Tales 1
Cautiously Investigate Tales 1
Sleep 4
So I'm not entirely satisfied with how we're tallying the votes in this respect - Diamond and the Tales would have both tied the Soul Market if we were just choosing investigation targets and not how to approach them. But, breaking into someone's office and rifling through their things is a lot different from having a chat (or even a yell) and an ask around town. Likewise, discreetly investigating a Guild Prince is a very different plan from going to him directly and trying to infiltrate his organization.
I'd be glad of any feedback on how to resolve this conundrum (or even if it needs resolving).
A favor from the Guild. That's the thing that moved you up in the world once, and applied to just the right tipping point it's the sort of thing that can probably move empires. In the present circumstances you can do a lot with that marker, and you're going to have to think hard about how to use it best.
Guild Favor gained!
...
The dead volcano that Gem is built into has innumerable nooks and crannies not suitable for human habitation, not only abandoned mining shafts where veins have run out but also where soft bits of ancient lava snaked their way into harder rock and then weathered away grain by grain. Your target is a particularly serpentine example, which layers its way through an absolute nightmare labyrinth of twists and turns. The entire cavern system is pitch black and you have to navigate by feel and in many places the corridors are too narrow for anybody larger than you to crawl through - and even someone your size would have to twist through bends and anticipate deadfalls and manage a twenty-foot climb in complete darkness.
In a wax-sealed satchel in one of these tunnels, hidden just out of the way to be not quite hidden enough to fool a dedicated searcher, you place one of your books about a forbidden romance between a terrible Anathema and the Dragon hunting him. Then, in a little nook after another blind corner, another wax-sealed satchel with Cheshago's codebook.
It's not perfect, you muse as you stand outside blinking furiously in the sun and brushing the dust and rock chips off yourself, but it's about the best you can do on short notice.
NIGHT 2
Those looking for the Sun Market need only seek out the part of the city where the oppressive heat of the South beats down the hardest that day. In Gem this is hot enough to be deadly with long exposure and so it perfectly captures the ethos of the Sun Market. Those who linger and take too much of an interest in just where the wonderful things stocking its stalls come from are not long for this world. You know the rules though, illegality might be rife in the Sun Market but it's one of the Despot's accepted evils and so not against the law as long as it doesn't give him a reason to change his mind.
If you can look past all that it is well worth braving the heat for. This is a market where anything can be bought, or so they say. You don't actually know enough about the world to know if this is true - maybe there are markets that are greater, but you wouldn't be surprised if it was.
Today the Market is being held in a plaza that's usually cool due to its cleverly designed arches that would trap wind to make a gentle breeze. But with the air so thick with moisture it has turned it into a sweating furnace where your time at the market is measured in how many flasks of water you can carry. Luckily, with all your pockets you can carry a fair amount more than most.
Charisma 2 + Investigation 4 = Botched!
There's a few familiar faces at the market today and you waste no time ducking into the shade of a stall selling no doubt stolen amulets and rings and give the young man working the stall a smile.
"Iblin!" you say, "business good?"
"Until you walked in yes," he replies, smiling back. You never bought anything but you'd shared a meal with him often enough back in the day that he never complained too hard about it.
You let him conduct his business while swapping a few stories of the past few weeks, before dropping the reason you are actually here.
"So I know it isn't your usual fare, but have you heard of a Golden Chest? About this big?" you say making motions with your hand to match what the kid in the ruined house had shown you. "Pretty recent."
He stares at you hard for a good moment and then shrugs back out into the sun. "You should go, I've got a lot to do today."
"Iblin?"
"Not today Sharell, nothing personal."
You don't press your luck, causing a scene in the Sun Market is a good way for the gruff looking thugs in the dark glasses to come drag you off and they are not creatures of reason. Besides you have a few more people to try yet.
***
"I'll clear your slate for finding the crew that went through your stores Princess, I need this. No? All right, all right."
***
"Hey Steals I didn't even say it was gold! Just a general chest enquiry. Oi, you can't kick me out while you're giggling!"
***
"Come on Chant, I'll do anything for some news. I'll … I'll even buy something."
***
Sucking the last few drops of water out of a flask, you're trying to work out which specific rejection has murdered the good mood you started with today. If Chant of the Flames is turning down money and Steals Kisses is turning down the chance to gossip, forces even more powerful than friendship are at work here.
People have noticed you making a fool of yourself too and are beginning to scurry away when you get close like you've brought the plague to market. It won't be long before one of those sunshade wearing toughs notice and then your time here is done with absolutely nothing to show for it. You sweep your gaze over the crowd looking for at least someone slow on the uptake who hasn't yet realized the social poison you've become.
Coal black eyes hook you right in.
"Long day?" asks a voice that put you in mind of a seat by warm fire and hot food in your belly. It fills you up and your bad mood just melts away.
You nod dumbly, heart fluttering at the man before you. Hair flickering a fiery red, licking at the air that makes you feel guilty your own hair doesn't burn at all. He prompts you to both come closer and speak with a wave of his hand. His long, blade like fingernails are painted like rubies.
Automatic Success
"I was looking for a Golden Chest," you say, utterly lost in those dark eyes. "And a murderer who likes knives too much."
"Of course you were," he says, reaching down to tend with something on his stall. You can't look away right now to see what it is, but you're absolutely sure it's beautiful. "You're sharing the dance of another today, same questions, different answers. I'm looking forward to hearing about where your two different paths take you."
"Paths?" you say, a little groggily. Your eyes dip to their clothes, gems and silks befitting the richest of merchants but with an unusual style that itches at their back at your mind. Beautiful, decadent, impractical? The last word doesn't feel right in your head, but you roll it around anyway.
"Just a fancy of mine," they say with a musical laugh that dashes your concerns. You lean in to listen. "I do like tales of murderers though, with a hundred knives you say?"
You don't think you said a hundred, did you? You're pretty sure. You shake your head.
"No just vicious. Cruel. Killing and torturing the soul even after death," you reply, distracted by the way the licking flames of their hair play with the sun. At some point you climbed up to sit on their stall and they'd taken a seat beside you, leaning in to each other like you were sharing a private moment.
"There's plenty of ways to do that," he says in a whisper. "Knives are the work of an amateur. I imagine it'll get a lot more interesting."
"I thought…" you begin to say and falter. Thinking right now, what were you thinking? You retrieve something from your pocket and roll it in your hands. It helps a little, soothing your head and helping the words come easier. "The Soul Stealers. Down south?"
"Soul Stealers," he says, backing off quickly. From the words? No he'd moved before that, fast as lit pitch. "I am familiar with them."
"You trade with them," you say, more confidently now. It makes sense, of course he does. You grip the ball a little tighter, the feeling of the grooves pressing against your skin. Usually you are a little more careful with your nail bombs but right now it feels good to have in your hands. His coal black eyes are watching you with all that comforting love bleeding out as they catch alight.
Automatic Success not currently possible. Manipulation 5 + Integrity 5 = 1 success. Even with appearance bonuses bounces off Sharell's Resolve
"I have traded with many before yes, I would object to the name though. I do not trade in souls," he says and you catch the little flicker of indignation smouldering within them.
"You're being very careful with your words," you say, hugging the wooden ball full of nails to your chest.
"Honesty is important to me. All the ones from the South are the same," he says and holds out a hand "Could I look at that? It's a curious thing isn't it?"
Automatic Success not currently possible. Manipulation 5 + Integrity 5 = 5 success. Gets past Sharell's Resolve easily.
Automatic Success
You can't say no to a silky voice like that, dropping the ball into his outstretched hand. A beautiful grimace of pain goes across his face as he pulls his hand back, twisting his features in a way that makes your heart soar. The ball full of iron nails thumps into the sand and you immediately put it out of mind, it's really not important.
"A soul is a terrible thing to waste, Sharell," he says, using your name despite you not even mentioning it. You find it wonderfully witty and don't worry about the why. "Some down South might take their fill in one drink, but they're brutes. True passion should be savoured by those willing to share, true grief taken from those who wish to be rid of it. That is the way of a merchant, to trade in prices that both sides find fair is it not?"
"That is how they work," you nod, a little confused. Why explain that? He seems comforted by your acceptance though and that makes you feel good, so you keep explaining. "So not one of the fair folk, they'd have paid a fair price?"
"Or taken it with far more artistry. A blood splattered blade is a sign of inexperience and weakness like that could be pounced upon, they'd aspire to better than that. No, this is something new and that's interesting."
Wits 2 + Integrity 3 = The second botch today. Ouch
"You like interesting?" you say, thumping your chest, "I've uncovered a conspiracy that could get people killed and got blood from a stone shaped like a woman today and it's only half done. I'm full of interesting."
He's back close again now, breath hot enough to burn lightly against your cheek. You try not to flinch but you can't help yourself as the pain blossoms out, ashamed at how bad at flirting you've always been.
"A life without interest is a life without worth and I'm very interested in the different truths two truth seekers can find. But alas, I am just a humble merchant," he says, tipping up your chin to meet you with those coal black eyes. "So all I can offer you for now is my wares. For a fair price of course."
You were planning on buying something later, but not from here. Or at least you weren't. Were you? "Do I … can I have a moment?"
Automatic Success
"Oh no, Sharell," he says, shaking his head, "I really do insist."
What kind of weapon do you buy off the Handsome Merchant?
PICK ONE.
Just something ordinary and mundane, nothing fancy. Apparently they won't last long, but you might not either he says with a laugh. You don't remember paying for this already, but he seems quite insistent you have. [ ] - You've got a pole for prodding things but there's a club here that folds in on itself so finely it's thinner than a coin? It feels strange in the palm, heavy and light all at once. Still you could be armed no matter where you go.
[ ] - You've already got a knife (who doesn't?) but these blisteringly hot throwing knives shimmer eagerly, desperate to be used. Just the three, but where they land fire is sure to follow
[ ] - You don't know how to use a sword, but after a few swings with a shortsword that catches the light in incredibly strange ways you don't think that'll be an issue. It's like it's got a mind of its own.
Esoteric. A job like this needs more oomph than a regular weapon can give you. The merchant is happy to take a memory for something with a little more kick to it. Perhaps one of a vicious hunger or a moment's respite on a rough day. Nothing you'll miss. [ ] - Jewelled Egg - A crystal egg speckled with coal dust about the size of a vulture's - it doesn't crack when you rap on it. When you do manage to break it though he says it will disgorge a creature for your protection that will obey your commands as long as you hold the shell - for a time.
[ ] - The Spire - A card covered in elaborate patterns that make your head fuzzy as you try to follow them, while the face shows a resplendent monster, bearing down on a hapless hunter. He explains you can play it face up to imbue yourself with a burst of speed for a short time, or play it face-down to create a ward that will immobilize anyone who crosses it for a short time. Once used it'll come back to you in time, it just has to pass through a few other people's hands first.
No hesitation. You smile at him. He wants to make a bargain then fine, what's the most expensive things he's got? He looks absolutely delighted you'd even ask. [ ] - A Ruby Goblet - This one is a bit on the nose, he admits, although you're not really sure why he'd think that. With concentration you can fill a wine goblet with a concoction that'll make whoever drinks it the fairest of friends. Asking what happens if you drink the wine yourself actually manages to make him blush and say he didn't think you were the type.
[ ] - Deep Pockets - You've a beautiful coat, but what it needs is a bottomless pocket full of gold. It's not gold that will last forever, but it'll last long enough and isn't that all that matters?
[ ] - The Pierced Journal- A small book worn near the heart with a hole punched right through it. It can save your skin from the worst of injury, but best not to push your luck. It'll only go so far.
[ ] - The First Flame - A pair of gloves that give you a tingle when worn, he says they can call back to the memory of the first time that the heavens threw down lightning and caused a tree to become a flame. You're only able to summon up a few sparks when you try them but he assures you if you truly want them then they'll work as promised, you're just not putting yourself into it right now.
You have to cool off after that encounter, you'd never felt the glare of the heat quite this badly and your head is pounding. You return home and before you know it you're safe in the comfort of a warm bed and sleep has taken you. Sleep and uncomfortable dreams. When you wake back up what had just happened makes a little more sense to you, though even a clear mind doesn't help quite put it all together. You'd nearly kissed a man you barely knew and somehow earned a boon, despite making such a scene of yourself. What had actually happened back there was going to bother you for some time.
You hadn't meant to sleep through half the day but there's no putting spilt wine back into the bottle so you press on. The sun has thoroughly set when you pick your way through the Antiquarian's garden. You retrieve the maid's key from its hiding place - she only comes by once a week and that's not today - and let yourself in the back door of his house. It's a bit smaller than would be expected for someone of his standing, but it's cozy and dry and it's got lots of space for his strange relics and exotic books. He's got an artistic hobby, too, as you nearly stumble over one of his unfinished paintings propped against the wall. You bend down to inspect it more closely, a scene of rivers and green that somehow makes your heart ache, and that's when it hisses at you.
Your heart skips a beat - the encounter in the Sun Market has you a little paranoid about things not behaving as they should, probably. But you look around it and hiding between the painting and the wall is the Antiquarian's cat, a small, short-haired little critter, mostly white but with patterns like someone has dipped its face, paws and tail into dark brown paint.
"Nice to see you too, Leviathan," you say, fishing out and tossing down a few bits of dried meat as he makes a high-pitched growl.
Wits + Survival = 1 success. It's a cat. That'll do it.
This coaxes him from a position hiding behind the painting to hiding behind your feet, which you suppose is good enough. That's when you hear the distinctive thoom of a firewand go off and your first instinct is to hide behind the painting yourself. Leviathan scrambles up your leg and doesn't stop until he hits shoulder with sharp, painful claws. That doesn't stop you both from scrambling for cover though, you find it behind a large suit of armor in the hall and he finds it inside your coat.
Strolling out of the Antiquarian's study, twirling a flamepiece and whistling to themselves you see them.
Bright red hair, unlike the individual from earlier you'd call it a wreath of flames only if you were being metaphorical, with feathers arranged on her (her?) head like some sort of crown. You don't really have time to get an accurate count but you're pretty sure ten is a good guess. A long coat, slender shoulders, gorgeous blue eyes. If you were looking at the head and face you'd say a girl, if you were looking at the figure you'd guess a particularly slender boy, but as mesmerizing as they are you really don't have time to be resolving that right now!
A swirling tide of rumor coalesces in your mind and you realize that even if putting the name to the face is new you know who this person is and you hadn't considered them under the heading of "famous investigator" because you didn't mentally classify them under "investigator" at all because this is the Despot's murderous half-faerie attack dog.
Why in the actual hell is she working this case?
ACTION INTERRUPT.
As you have no doubt already guessed, you aren't the only body in motion! Investigators, enforcers, schemers, old soldiers thrust into plots beyond their ken and yes, murderers have actions of their own that they'll take. They'll move, obtain information, form conclusions, create new goals and rearm themselves based on what happens. Like you, sometimes they'll succeed and sometimes they'll fail. Sometimes you'll deal with the aftermath of something they've done. Sometimes they'll deal with the aftermath of something you've done.
And sometimes you'll run into each other. When that happens, the only thing that's certain is that something's going to go down.
Ten Feathers is here. She's just shot someone or something, and you only know one person that lives here.
[ ] - GET OUT NOW. You can come back another day, whatever damage they've done is probably already done and you do not need to have this confrontation right now.
[ ] - HIDE AND WAIT. If this has suddenly become a crime scene you need to see it fresh, not to mention the Antiquarian's files might still have something, but you really need to not let this person know you're here.
[ ] - SNEAK ATTACK. This asshole's got a body count longer than your arm, including people you've known, and there's a not-small chance that if the Antiquarian has files that could help you, she's going to take them. Oh and small addition, she may have just killed him. You're feeling pretty furious at her very existence, maybe you can sneak up and hit her on the head with something heavy and have an interrogation on your own terms.
[ ] - PLAY NICE. You've heard nothing but bad things, but maybe… maybe at least some of it has been a misunderstanding? If you come out with your hands up and don't make sudden moves, maybe the two of you can come to some sort of understanding. Or maybe you'll end up tied up and having an interrogation on her terms.
You were so sure those mushrooms were the right kind. Now you're glad about how selfish you were in stuffing them down, at least no one else got caught in your foolishness.
"Hnnn… HNNNNN…"
But the gurgling in your guts told a roiling tale of your error. And now you need to get rid of them, fast - if they digest, you'll either be hallucinating for days, or much worse.
Even so your body is refusing to cooperate. It's almost there, almost there. You stick your fingers down your throat again and sweet, cold relief floods you as you feel the retch catch and you lose your lunch down the side of the volcano.
"I didn't know you could put that much food in you," Cricket laughs, holding back your hair as you make a tragic scene of yourself. "No one's going to believe that I found a moment I was smarter than Sharell Zenteno."
You try to curse him out, but your throat is very busy with other things right now.
The Honest Merchant is laughing softly. "Not what I expected," he says, and you aren't quite sure what you were just reminiscing about, "but payment in full." He hands you the patterned card. "Use it well."
Obtained: The Spire
Sharell: 3 Dexterity + 3 Stealth = 7 successes. We are the night.
Feathers: 2 Perception + 3 Awareness = 5 successes. Gobsmacking, but not good enough!
From your spot behind a suit of no doubt ludicrously expensive scale armour you can see the fire wand slung across Ten Feathers' shoulders bob back and forth, their (you're going to go with "they" for now just to save yourself from trying to figure it out) fingers tapping a rhythm against the metal as they make their way out.
It's nice for your size to really work to your advantage, the suit of armour looks like it's been made for someone with actual hips, a full chest and about a foot of height on you. It's all too easy to keep yourself still behind and sway gently to keep it between you and Ten Feathers, just the occasional flash of fiery feathered hair on the edge of the armour as they near the exit.
They pause at the arch and you can hear them clucking their tongue. "Cat, cat," you hear them muse, just the faintest rasp rattling around an otherwise well spoken voice. There's the sound of collapsing paintings as something is knocked over and then a much louder bang as something heavy is left scraping along the floor after a good kick. You hold your nerve and take soft breaths as you see a flick of their red hair as they turn quickly and stride back into the room.
"Has anyone seen a cat?" they call out to the room, "a pure white thing life's rolled through the mud. You can't miss it, it's the only thing meant to be here."
You hear the click of metal, that must be the firing catch of the fire wand. You hadn't heard them reload it with firedust, so they'd either done it insanely quick before they left the room they'd fired from or it has some kind of trick to it. Or is it a bluff? You keep dead still, you don't fancy your chances calling it.
The room's filling up with the ashy smell of burnt wood and white smoke is coiling across the ceiling as you hear their boots scratch over stone floor. They seem amused, a puffing start of a laugh building in their throat as they advance.
"Have you found a rat, little cat? Something scurrying about where it shouldn't be?"
There's a swish of air and then a clatter and you see the butt of their fire wand smash apart a stack of paintings that would have made a great hiding place for someone just a little smaller than you. They tut at it and you jump back as they turn, so thankful you're not wearing anything that would stick out from your natural profile right now.
The cat in your coat is making itself felt with its claws against your shirt, but gravity is starting to win out as it slowly balls up by your waist. Ten Feathers is coming your way now so you do the only thing you can think of and give the cat a gentle nudge on its way down. It takes off like a crossbow bolt the moment it hits the floor, dashing out across the room and running up a bookcase better than even you could have, using its perch to hiss angrily at Ten Feathers.
"Tch," they say, "you won't be doing that when your belly gets empty. Learn your place."
You hear the clack of the firewand being brought to a shoulder and bite your lip. Surely they wouldn't?
There's a fateful pause where you rapidly calculate if you're about to throw yourself into this mess to save a cat when Ten Feathers breaks the silence for you.
"I know you're there," they call, "show yourself little rat, there's no point hiding."
Bluff? Bluff. If they really knew they'd just drag you out of your spot, so you stay dead still and hope you called this one right.
A minute passes to the background sounds of an ever building crackling noise in the other room and the smoke spreads across the ceiling and begins to slowly descend. There's a snort from the middle and the swish of metal through the air as you see the fire wand Ten Feathers is twirling like a baton, before they throw a sarcastic salute to the cat.
Then with a swish of their hips they're out and into the streets beyond. You can finally take a breath and it burns - the air is getting hot and a few bits of ash are already floating in the air.
Breaking cover you run to the recent murder scene and see just what you'd feared. The Antiquarian is attached inelegantly to one of the metal displays for skeletons, the bones of some ancient beast scattered along the floor. A white painter's smock soaked with bloody red cuts as he's hung there is a staggering pose, fright etched into his face.
The entire back wall is on fire, his recent works burning with bright green and red flames and the wooden supports of the marble building already ablaze and threatening to light up the entire painted ceiling. The smoke is getting thick and it looks like a complete deathtrap in the making.
Of course you go in there, you've got one chance to salvage something from this miserable situation and as long as you're quick you can be in and out before the trap's jaws snap shut.
Obviously the cat is coming with you, but time is short for anything else. What do you take?
PICK ONE
[ ] - Fire or no fire, you need to examine the body and the crime scene. Do it quickly before the whole thing catches.
[ ] - Books! The Antiquarian had a ton of rare books and those poor babies have done nothing to deserve this terrible fate. He has a small wheelbarrow in the back for his garden. Work fast and indiscriminately to save as many as you can.
-[ ] - (Optional) Use the Spire's speed boost to save more. A bit soon, but it's for a good cause.
[ ] - Books! It's a terrible tragedy but you've still got a job to do and not everyone makes it to the end of the line. Search for books that might be relevant to your investigation. Take only what you can carry.
[ ] - Relics. You don't know what was junk and what had actual magic in it but maybe there's something you can use?
[ ] - This is the one time there's enough free water in Gem that you can maybe stem a fire. You'll have to draw attention to yourself so there's a good chance it'll get you noticed by the departing Feathers, but organize a bucket chain immediately.
