Blaze of Glory (Exalted)

Guancyto · Oct 30, 2019

Fight Fire 3
Save Necessary Books 2
Save All Books 1

You watch the fading red of the fire-headed investigator from the doorway, still panting for breath after holding it still so long. You're still not sure why Ten Feathers is so happy to let the place burn, the Antiquarian has one of the greatest gatherings of knowledge outside of the House Libraries and she's willing to let it all go up in smoke just to, what? Spite you? Cover her own crimes?

You can't come up with any reason that would justify burning away a man's legacy, but for an awful moment you contemplate letting it happen anyway. You'd bitten your tongue to avoid a brush with death and now you're afraid to throw away the safety you'd bought yourself and do the right thing.

No. No! Screw this lady! Or man! Or whatever they are with that irritatingly attractive walk! Not on your watch. That cocky tone is still ringing in your ears and you're sure they had a smug sneer to go with it, so you're going to wipe it off one way or another. You'll save the crime scene, the house and the damn cat too.

The Antiquarian might be dead but you can at least save what he cared about.

The heat beating at your back you run to the door frame and peek out, willing Ten Feathers to hurry up and get clear. You're aware every moment waiting is something lost to the flames, but if you're going to gamble it all you're going to wait for a good hand. Ten Feathers reaches the end of the street and turns back to look at their work and you duck behind the doorpost, back pressed to the wall. The fire is starting to build up its rage now, you can hear the cracking of timbers and the low roar of half-finished paintings being lost to time. Indignation fuels your brave attempt to take another peek so soon and you see Feathers has already swept around to leave.

You dash out of the house immediately, tucking your coat into a ball around your arm and vaulting the house's garden wall. "Fire! Fire! Bring water, now!" you cry into the night, catching the ears of a few people still filling containers of water to store away for later, determined to not let a drop of this rainfall go to waste. Bless their greedy hearts. You glance at the retreating investigator and oh shit they're looking right back at you, easily visible against the red fire glow starting to spill out of the Antiquarian's house. You see a glint of satisfaction in their eyes but nothing that looks like recognition. Has nobody told them what you look like?

Sharell: Manipulation 3 + Stealth 3 = 2 successes
Ten Feathers: Perception 2 + Awareness 3 -1 Expecting Someone Taller -1 Expecting Someone Prettier = 1 success.
You got away with it! They don't clock you.

With a little shrug Ten Feathers kicks on their heels and walks off, a spring in their step that you're quite sure wouldn't be there if they knew just what they'd missed.

Charisma 2 + Performance 0 = 3 successes. DAYUM. Spent a Willpower for an extra success in anticipation of failing, so it's 4.

Organising the water gatherers is a hassle, their minds were firm set on taking water for themselves and now a young lady insisting they give it up is a tough sell. But your luck is in as a rambunctious group coming back from a very late night at the bar stumbles into the scene and you're quite happy to take advantage of their state to get them on your side. Faced with a rather determined woman and a pack of mostly confused but nonetheless eager to participate drunks the rest of the street eventually gives in and begin to turn those containers to something a little more selfless. A bucket chain staffed by drunks and people who don't even want to be there is not the height of efficiency, but it's amazing what the power of yelling really loudly and confidently can do and quantity has a quality all its own. You take your spot at the end of the haphazard chain of water filled containers, hoping to keep people's eyes out of the crime scene for as long as you can. A dull thudding against the wall from outside tells you that they've also started extinguishing any flames that pop up outside.

Intelligence + Investigation = 1 success. Didn't get the clue.

It turns out you didn't need to worry, the grisly scene you'd walked in on has changed a lot by the time you're sloshing out the last of the flames. A murder has been replaced by an unfortunate death from an accidental fire that must have gotten out of control somehow. Certainly nobody wants to inspect the blackened corpse too closely to see anything different.

You were pretty confident that the main library was going to make it (if only because of the sheer amount of vengeance in store if it hadn't), but as your eyes sweep the backroom and you cough something truly foul out of your lungs, you see that a surprising amount has survived the flames. Even the poor corpse of the Antiquarian was doused before it was completely charred to a crisp, although the clothes are quite thoroughly charcoal. If you had been less quick or if your helpers had been less effective the crime scene might have been a lost cause, but you've managed to save nearly everything.

You know the Antiquarian was a hospitable fellow from your time with him and you're sure he won't really mind if you distribute some of the contents of his larder to your fortuitous benefactors to much back-slapping and cheering. Thankfully they're willing to accept meat as a thanks and mainly ignore the treasures around them, unaware of what they're leaving behind for you. A few things do disappear into pockets as you herd the crowd towards the exit, but it's a small price to pay as you push the last of them out of the door and watch them go, some singing drunken songs of heroism and some just a little confused as to what just happened.

You take a moment in the garden to collapse among the sharp smell of greenery. No one will notice you behind the hedge and you can take a breather. Leviathan jumps on top of you and kneads his paws into your back before settling down to sleep. Maybe you can just rest your eyes a little, you've earned it right? As you start to fade your tired muscles are warmed by the thrill of the moment.

Take that, you featherbrained firebug.

Aching from a quick dirt nap, you drag yourself into the half burnt house and check the larder for anything not dust covered for Leviathan to eat. The lucky cat is getting the last bit of cream it'll have for quite some time from a sealed jar, as everything else looks just a bit too blackened to be really safe to give them.

Leaving a happy purr behind you, you return to the backroom and the grisly scene that Ten Feathers left behind. The fire has claimed most of the back wall and the easels nearby but the rest of the room only soaked in water - barely even damaged at all. The fire thankfully hadn't gotten across the room to the stacks of books, they're mainly made of homemade vellum and not the cheap paper the northerners sell but they really aren't any less flammable for it.

The charred body of the Antiquarian makes a sad figure and the smell is gut wrenching, but you've learned your lesson about laying a body to rest and so you work to cut it free of the bone display rigging and lay it out on the marble floor. You don't know any good prayers yourself, so you just stumble through a general thanks for being a seemingly kind and thoughtful soul in a city that desperately needs more of them.

Perception 3 + Awareness 3 = 1 success. A bit too distracted to notice much.

You move some white painter's cloths over to act as a shroud and carefully tuck the body in. Something nags at your mind about the body, but though it floats on the tip of your tongue you just can't get the thought out. The burnt body has some cracks in the char that confuse you, are they cuts?

Intelligence 4 + Medicine 0 = 1 success. Fire damage makes this a little out of our league.

You shake your head. Morbid to think about and it's not like you'd even know what to look for to really prove it. You busy yourself wrapping him up good and tight instead, you're not sure what you'll do with the body but at the very least you can make it look like it's ready to move on.

Leviathan joins you as you work and you ruffle the cat's head as it pads around the body. Poor thing is mewing as if to try to get him to stir, you'll have to find a good place for that cat, if not for his timely intervention there might have been two corpses for the fire and no one left to put it out.

You spirit away as much of the house's goods as you can before someone comes to investigate, but there's a few things to do before you can really dig in to everything.

One of your actions will be dedicated to extensively using the Antiquarian's books and files to research the Chest and Key, so treat this as an investigation turn with a bit of social mixed in. If you pick the same person twice it'll be an extended scene with them.

Who do you ask to help you take care of the Antiquarian's body?
[ ] - Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. This isn't Guild business that you can see yet, but you can certainly argue that it is anyway.
[ ] - Niall. It's not a noble way to be laid to rest, but you know he's a good soul and he'd see it done right.
[ ] - Your scholar friend in House Iblan. He can direct you through the proper legal channels to get him buried, determine if he has a last will of any kind, and you can maybe work out just what Ten Feathers' legal status is exactly.
[ ] - Steals Kisses and your friends in the Marketplace. Friends will help you move, true friends will help you move a body. They wouldn't talk about a chest, now they can redeem themselves!
[ ] - All by yourself. Taking it out to the desert alone will be a little awkward, but he's got a hand cart. You can find some ruins to bury him at. He'd no doubt like being made a part of history.

Who do you try to pass Leviathan on to while you further your investigation?
[ ] - Raicho. You've got questions for her and she looked like a cat person. Well a Jackal person but you're not a cat expert, maybe Jackals like cats.
[ ] - Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. It probably won't cost you that favour and she might have an idea of what happened here.
[ ] - Niall. It's probably a spectacularly bad idea to give a Rat Priest a cat, but the irony of it is also hard to resist.
[ ] - Steals Kisses. She didn't answer your questions despite owing you, so she gets to look after the cat now and also explain why.
[ ] - Yourself. You got a warm fire and a bit of money. Hopefully he won't eat all your furniture and it'll give you time to go through some of the Antiquarian's books.

Guancyto · Nov 1, 2019

DAY 3

Most of the Grand Houses of Gem have tastefully architectured palaces built by some of the finest craftsmen Creation have to offer. They wear this grandeur as a cloak to show their wealth and class, hiding the blood that has been spilled to get there. Not so House Iblan, as the youngest of the Grand Houses the firedust merchants have something to prove. The sprawling mansion is like something from a fireside tale. Far too large to be reasonable, it has been crammed to bursting with everything the wealthy can ever need and plenty more they don't.

A training ground with strange moving machines, a baths with water heated with steam all the way from the smoldering heart of the sleeping Gem volcano and even rumours of a zoo with creatures from the furthest poles? You haven't seen any of that and have your suspicions some of it doesn't exist and is merely bragging, but it's impossible to rule out. The mansion of House Iblan is a village in itself and you really could lose a zoo in it.

You've visited enough that the mercenaries are happy to wave you through towards the Stacks, a building with towers of paperwork taller than several men and a library fitted around it that is constantly being curated by aspiring scholars. In their red and black robes you stick out like a sore thumb and you lean up against a bookcase and wait for the scandalized whispers to grow loud enough that eventually they summon who you're here for.

A gangly young man with a mop of brown hair that he's once again trying to tie back into a bun and failing quite badly, Samet Adivar always seems to be a hurry. Which really tickles you because he could not find a more cosy job if he tried.

"Sharell," he says, breathless, "did you just get here?" He must have run over to get to you before Head Scholar Aegis found you first and began lecturing about the many things a young woman should be doing that didn't involve being in her library. You can wait for the old lady to run out of steam no problem, but Samet is the one who has to put up with her for the rest of the day.

"Been here hours," you lie just to see him splutter. "I told Aegis we're dating to get her off my back."

The shade of red he immediately goes makes you take pity and reach out to tug at his robe's sleeve to shake him back to reality.

"Relax, Samet, I just got here. I actually have business with you today."

"Business?" he says, going from flustered shock to flustered confusion. You usually only come to swap a few home-rolled cheroots for a book loan.

"Mmm!" you nod, "But same payment, if you want to get us a room?"

Relief washes over him and he slumps with a relaxed sigh. "Yes, yes of course. Come on through, we're not busy."

"Are you ever busy?" you ask, falling into step behind him as he heads to one of the sorting rooms. He knocks on the door and checks for the Secret Signs; you're not the only ones who value privacy and after the first couple of times interrupting Samet's coworkers fooling around you've learned to give a little warning.

"Of course! Sometimes someone important will come down and ask a legal question and it'll be total chaos as we go through the stacks to find a precedent," he says, opening a thin wooden door and waving you into a room that's mainly paper with a desk and a few chairs floating in the mess. There's barely a pathway for the pair of you to cut through and a mild bump does cause a cascade of papers to drop to the floor, but Samet doesn't even blink at that.

"You know I've always wondered what all this paper was for," you say as you fish the chair out and take a seat, pulling out the cheroots and a few matches. This is possibly the biggest fire trap in the city, but it's a tradition by now. No one will ever expect to find two people in here, let alone find them smoking.

Samet looks at the cheroots greedily, until you wave a hand for him to take one himself and there's a frantic bit of motion as he lights up and takes a deep breath. It's like a magic spell cast over him, all that nervous energy dissipating into the air in moments as the smoke curls off the end of his smoke. He's careful to cup his hands around it though just in case an ember tries to make a break for it. Better to be a little burned than a lot.

"This?" he says once he's better centered. "Well this is the words of Rankar the Third, out of fashion now. Rankar the Fourth started fresh and the current Rankar only grandfathered in the Fourth's words, but we keep them just in case he ever decides he wants to extend that."

"Words?" you say, eyebrow raised. You're passing on the smoke yourself, you're allowed to have them where you like and it's no fun having to be so careful with them. "Like his laws? Isn't this a bit much for that?"

"Ah, well, there's accompanying texts too. What a Rankar says can be short, but the implications of what it means can be awfully long," Samet says, leaning back and blowing smoke into the air. "You had a case yourself a while ago didn't you? I heard your name come up, restitution for injury inflicted to a friend?"

"Not how I'd put it," you sigh, "but yes a friend was killed and I got a bit of justice for a change."

"Exactly. Exactly!" he nods enthusiastically, "and now the implications of that ripple out through law. Others can argue that since Sharell Zenteno got restitution for a close associate with standing legal will, they should also get the same treatment. We weight that case up against past words and eventually settled law emerges."

"But Rankar did it as a joke," you say, leaning on the table. You hadn't even considered that this was a possibility, "he just found it amusing I'd gone to such lengths to argue the case. Doesn't that make it a one off?"

"It's the words of the Despot. Nothing is a one off. What he says is law, until he says it's not," Samet says. "That's why we're paid to keep track of everything they've ever said and find a precedent whenever the House runs into trouble. Or someone pays us to represent them."

You look at the vast stacks of paper in this room, just a thin slice of the amount outside being tended to by dozens of students and sigh.

"And with all these rulings, I'm sure you can always find one that goes your way."

"It's not like that," he says, suddenly hissing as a bit of ash burns his fingers. Sucking on the finger he mumbles his words a little. "We're a Great House, we can generally do what we like anyway, it's only when we disagree with other Great Houses that it really becomes a problem."

"That's not better Samet. That's .. that's so much worse."

"Well I don't disagree, but it's well out of our hands," he says with a shrug. "Best I can do is make sure I'm kind to those who deserve it. Speaking of which, what does the bearer of my one bit of relaxation need today?"

You look at him flat for a moment, but Samet doesn't really seem to have got where he's going wrong here. Samet's a smart lad in a lot of ways but matters of basic fairness really aren't one of them. The dangers of a legal mind.

You describe the issue with the Antiquarian, leaving out the whole near death experience and he listens attentively. Then he puts out the cheroot on the lip of your tobacco pouch and goes out to fetch something, returning with a rather cheap looking bone scroll case with a vaguely familiar name written painted down the length that he knocks out onto the table and unrolls, weighing down the edges with stacks of loose paper.

"The good news is that he has left a will," he says, "the bad is it's a bit of an awkward one. No immediate family that he cares to mention, instead he's leaving his home and collection to one of suitable mind and temperament to continue his work."

"Would I qualify?" you ask immediately, willing to give it a shot.

"No, sorry," Samet says, shaking his head," there's a rather detailed list of what is required, experience with archaeological methods and proper preservation of history. A background in certain texts, finding someone suitable will be expensive and time consuming. He's got the money put aside for it, but it'll take time."

"And the fire damage?"

"Easily repaired, whoever replaces him won't be short of money. Almost wish I could apply."

"After what happened to him I don't think you'd be so eager. That's why I'm here really, is there something about how he'd like his body dealt with?"

Samet checks, "yes. He wants to go to Sijan."

Int 4 + Lore 3 = 3 successes. You know a weird city when you hear it

"The City of the Dead? Isn't that a really long way off?"

"You know of it?" Samet says, clearly impressed, "so you do actually read those books I give you."

You kick him under the table.

"What did you think I was using them for?" you huff.

"The mysteries of Sharell Zenteno are beyond the minds of a simple scholar."

"Very simple," you say, nodding in agreement.

"Hey! ... Okay so maybe I deserved that. But yes, Sijan, City of the Dead and a bit of a living legend. I can see why someone so interested in curiosities would want to be interred there."

"So do I need to do anything?" you ask, "he's got a cat and a lot of things that aren't going to last long in a house that's got a wall half burnt through."

"Are you willing to look after them? His will seems rather dependent on his house being intact, but there's precedent that someone holding the belongings of another is blameless of any crime as long as it was always intended to be returned when needed."

"One of Rankar's rulings?"

"Yes and one with a lot of loopholes, it's been a bit of a bother. He'll no doubt tidy it up eventually when he kills someone who was pushing their luck with it, until then would you want to hold onto it all? I can't see any reason a selfless act like this would cause any trouble."

Fitting it all into your room is going to be a nightmare, but the idea of all those books being left to the mercy of his neighbours doesn't sit right in your stomach so you nod. There's a form to fill out for it, but he walks you through it in no time at all and now you've got a little bit of legal protection if anyone wonders why half your room has the contents of a museum packed into it.

"I'm going to have to get back before Aegis notices we're gone. Thanks for the break though, it's always nice to see you Sharell!"

"Wait!" you say, getting up before him and putting a hand on his sleeve. "Ten Feathers, do you know them?"

"Personally?" he says, looking shocked at the accusation.

"No, you idiot, I mean in general. They're involved in all this somehow, who are they?"

"Well I've never seen them, but they do turn up in Rankar's words now and then. I believe she's a part of Rankar's will. Not like..." he waves at his hand at the unfurled Will on the desk. "I mean they're tasked with executing his will. The Despot's words are the law after all, but if people could just ignore them then they'd have no bite to them. So you have those who execute his will, with a relatively free hand in how they go about it."

"So they're like law enforcers?" you say, queasy at the idea of someone like Ten Feathers bearing that particular title.

"Not really no, that'd be up to Rankar's House Guards," Samet says, "It's more like prophecy. The Despot can never be wrong after all, so if Rankar says it will rain tomorrow then they'd have to get a lot of people together with fans and blow those rainclouds back this way."

"And they can do whatever they like?"

"If they get results then any laws they've broken along the way are generally excused, unless they're particularly egregious offences. It's an incredibly dangerous profession, failure isn't tolerated for a task that serious but pushing their luck to achieve it can be just as fatal. Very exciting characters though!"

You grimace. "I could do without that kind of excitement."

"Oh?" he laughs "You're thinking of becoming a scholar? I can guarantee a complete lack of excitement."

"I'd love to," you smile, "but then who'd sneak us in smokes?"

"The sacrifices you make for me," he says, giving a dopey attempt at a fancy bow, "honoured as always Sharell."

"You sure are," you say, giving his hair a ruffle while it's being offered up. Getting rid of that bad attempt at a topknot is a kindness to him and the world.

Once you've seen the Antiquarian off on his last and grandest journey yet, you're thankful that Samet has found the funds to get you a proper cart to get his things moved over to your home. Fitting them in is a challenge that starts off fun and gets annoying fast. You're down to using the rib cages of exotic animals as book storage in the end but you've made it all fit. More or less. Leviathan seems to be a little stressed about all this excitement so the addition of some fuzzy wool blankets to a quiet corner has him curled up and taking a catnap.

The trouble with the Antiquarian's library isn't that he doesn't have the information you need. As you set down with another kettle of tea and some mashed beets that you hope the cat will eat instead of gnawing on your boots, you're completely certain the answers to your questions are among all the books and relics somewhere, if only for the staggeringly high likelihood that he's been killed for what he knows. The trouble is that without the massive shortcut that is having the man himself handy there's too much here for any human to read in their entire lifetime and you have to resort to a lot of educated guesswork, and educated guesswork takes hours.

Metallurgical Principles of a Third Age turns out to have a lot about gold but nothing good about gold chests. On the Splendorous Properties of Chests turns out to be a very intriguing read but has absolutely nothing about the type of chest you're looking for. SEVEN GATES, SEVEN KEYS is thoroughly spooky but doesn't have the sort of keys you're looking for, although if you're ever in a situation where you need to summon up some terrible gribbly from the dawn of time now you'll be able to give it a good shot. You snap that one shut and thump your head down against your desk. You can probably go from now until the Cows Come Home (you've been assured that's a long time) skimming books that might be relevant and not find the right one.

From your sidelong position, however, you notice that Fall-Era Inheritance Practices of Deep Southern Horselords is missing a lot of pages in the middle. Nearly falling out of your chair you slide it over and open it up and examine the torn edges in the light - no wear on the tear at all. This has been done not just recently but recently recently. No wonder Feathers had such a casual attitude to the rest of the library, you think with a twinge of annoyance - they mutilated a poor book and already had what they thought they needed.

Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 = 4 successes. That'll do it!

You set down this poor victim of book crimes, telling it that everything will be okay. A less inquisitive mind might be stopped dead by this and dedicate themselves to tracking down the missing pages. But you've learned an eldritch secret of scholarship. After you learned to read you didn't have a lot of people you could ask, "hey, where can I find more like this?" so you found that a certain type of book contains something else that very few people ever bother reading: a sprawling treasure map of other books that it's referenced. Once you had found that treasure map, you found that such books tended to become massive spiderwebs of reference as every scholar competed to be the one with the most citations without getting knocked out of the competition for having a citation that wasn't relevant, or at least that's how it worked in your head. You flip to the end and sure enough, its author had been an avid competitor in that most dangerous of games.

Your work of citation-webbing gets you such titles as Austrech: Mutations in Aviquestrine Physiology (you didn't think you could make a dull book about something so wonderful, but this is so dry that you take a few minutes to imagine riding across the dunes on your own ten-foot-tall horse-bird), Maid Impossible: Domestic Usage of Animated Objects (this one is a bit more fun, but putting a maid outfit on a construct that looks near-human and making it clean sounds like a serious waste of time and effort), Sensuously Covered in Roses (no wait, that one's yours, piling all the books on top of your old ones was probably a bad idea on reflection), The Last Breath (a gruesome yet fascinatingly detailed description of what happens to a body after it dies and how to prevent it) and What Lies Beyond the Shadows (a fantastical story about a world like your own, but where only the ghosts of the dead live carrying on their lives in hundreds of monotonous ways. It's quite fanciful).

Of all things, on this long sprawling trawl it's Collected Poetry of the Avana Lineage that does it. You know you're in for a bit of a ride when the introduction is just,

"Once, there was a maiden…
…and before her came all the peoples of Creation,
and knelt.
They set aside their petty squabbles in her name.
They acclaimed her with many shouts.
They prayed for her safety and her weal.
Not one of them struck free her chains.
'To know the world…'
'…is to own it,' she said."

With a note scrawled in the margin that simply reads "Spheres?" Helpfully to punctuate hundreds of verses about ruling and lording power over other people, the Antiquarian has made a lot of footnotes and some are even helpful. From these you piece together that there were a bunch of kings with power over the "killing frost" and "heartless ice." After a brief detour to see that Leviathan has thoroughly devoured the mash and go look up what "frost" and "ice" are, you figure that a lineage of kings that had that kind of strength at their command were probably not human. The amount of time dedicated to water-related metaphors and their legions of children makes you think they were probably Dragons - men and women with the strengths of the world's elements in their blood, who could pass on their gifts to their children. Tended to form themselves into dynasties big and small and be incredibly arrogant bastards, so a lineage of Ice Queens is particularly in their wheelhouse. Or maybe it was just one faerie who was really into the ice thing and kept giving itself different names, but you are not in the mood to think about faeries today. You cast a quick baleful glance at the playing card that you'd ended up purchasing, the dizzying designs on the back of the card trapping your gaze until you can catch your senses and shake your head clear. No, if this is to do with fae you are out and damn the consequences.

The Key is described as a powerful penetrative force and a symbol of great authority - the poems directly about it are particularly embarrassing for exactly the reason you're dreading. The chests - chests, plural - contain things that the dynasty has been tasked with hiding away - there's a lot of verses about sealing, protecting, sacred duty, that sort of thing. It looks like they can be destroyed, but that doing so isn't particularly helpful for getting what's inside - there's a comedic (tragic? You can never tell what they're going for when they're flowery like that) saga of a thief smashing one open by dropping it off a cliff, only to find it empty at the bottom. The Key, it says, doesn't so much open the chests as cause what's inside to return to being here, albeit in pregnancy-related metaphors that make the tips of your ears start to smoulder. Nevertheless, it sounds like a pretty perfect bulwark against a lockpick. That means that whoever has the chest now absolutely needs your key since a crowbar won't do it. Unless they're some secret lost heir that just has to secret it away and make classy-sounding yet incredibly bawdy poems for the rest of their life? You can hope, anyway.

It is poetry, and thus frustratingly unhelpful in giving clues to how to find it, or what's inside (apparently being stupid cryptic was part of their sacred duties too). But… something super old that even ancient Dragons wouldn't touch and that needs to be actively disconnected from reality for fear someone will steal it.

And that's even assuming that what's supposed to be inside isn't itself the cause of all your problems. How very promising.

You've spent a lot of time today with your nose in a book searching for answers instead of going out and having terrifying near death experiences. It's paid off a little! Aside from what furthered your investigation, what did you get distracted by?

[ ] Metallurgical Principles gave you some interesting ideas on how to build stronger, more reliable nail bombs. (+Craft)
[ ] Maid Impossible got you thinking about how wide the world is and how much there is in it. Also you might want one of those, just a little bit. (+Lore)
[ ] Austretch wasn't as exciting as it rightly should have been but it did have a lot of notions on how to stay in the saddle, even on a giant bird. (+Ride)
[ ] The Last Breath was a little morbid but an absolute smorgasbord of medical knowledge. (+Medicine)
[ ] SEVEN KEYS was sort of an outside bet but its focus on rituals and the stars being right did have a lot of interesting magical nonsense in it. (+Occult)
[ ] You'll never admit it to anyone else, but you did spend some time with your heart aflutter rereading Sensuously Covered in Roses. (+Linguistics)

A little more quiet round after our very eventful night. As always, pick two investigation targets! You can do as many activities within a target 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 know what it is now, maybe you can get them to let slip some more details.
-[ ] Get them to tell you about the Words that Would Open the Way. You've no leverage, but you can bluff.

[ ] THE GILDED CHEST AND THE GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
-[ ] You've got a special key that unlocks a very specific chest. Take it for a walk, maybe it can sniff it out?
-[ ] Avana what now? You've never heard of them. You can't think of a way you'd get to ask an actual Dragon about a lineage of Ice Kings, but they must have their enthusiasts, right?

[ ] 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.
-[ ] Something serious went down at the Sun Market and you think you might know what, now. Go pay Steals Kisses and the rest of your friends a visit and make sure they're all right.
-[ ] The Handsome Merchant is such a charming fellow. You need another crack at his goods if you're going to survive this. But this time you're bringing iron and asking pointed questions to make sure you know what you're getting and what you're paying for it.

[ ] 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
-[ ] 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
-[ ] That was a hell of an encounter. You know who they are and some notion of what they're about, but you need more information in case you run into them again. Keep a low profile and ask around.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Stalk them, find out what they're up to and where they're going.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Find out where they live, break in and toss the place.
-[ ] Cut the bullshit. You know they're heavily involved in this, and even what their status is - go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
-[ ] No, seriously, cut the bullshit. Ask Waves Crashes Upon the Rocks to see that they meet with an accident. (This will use your Guild Favor)

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL-
[ ] - Sleep. You've caught too many naps outside your bed.
[ ] - Stay Up. Too many books, not enough time.

Guancyto · Nov 3, 2019

SEVEN KEYS 4
Maid Impossible 2
Last Breath 1

Sneaky Old Brothers 3
We Try Things, Sometimes They Even Work Key 3

Aggressive and Illegal Tales 2
Aggressive but Legal Tales 1 - Aggregated tiebreaker - Loses the roll-off anyway so no need for a sudden death round. Shame, wanted to see how it went.

Circumspect Diamond 2
Soul Market Friendship 1
Stalk Ten Feathers 1

Don't Sleep 3

NIGHT 3

It's so easy to get lost in your new library, the Collected Poetry of the Avana Lineage is just vague enough that you can go off down hundreds of different rabbit holes trying to puzzle out just what each stanza truly means. Eventually though you settle on pairing cryptic with crazy. SEVEN GATES, SEVEN KEYS is no less difficult to parse than the poetry but that means any similarities really leap out at you. Rituals spin into story and back out again, fleeting glimpses of a thread of truth that weaves between the two books gives rise to the suspicion that maybe it isn't quite as full of colourful nonsense as you'd first believed. It's just written by someone who'd clearly reached the end of their studies with their mind not fully intact, a lifetime of practical knowledge run through a messy filter of paranoia, panic and madness.

You are somewhat wiser in the ways of the Secret World. Occult skill increased!

SEVEN GATES, SEVEN KEYS is very clear about one thing though, if there is a key then there will be a lock. Two parts of the same working and so they connect even in absence of each other. Or at least, that's what you think it's trying to say. Reading it for so long is beginning to give you headaches.

Leviathan scratching at the door to be let out eventually drags you away from your work; you make the cat wait a little while you prepare yourself and then push the door open a crack to let them out. A sweet smell that hits your nose rushes any lingering tiredness right out of your body. The rain has sunk into the ground finally and the city has responded by coming alive.

Int 4 + Lore 3 = One Success. Enough for the basics!

Bright blue flowers are absolutely everywhere, swamping the roads and dotting roofs and you have to laugh at how confusing this is going to be for the rest of the city. You've never seen a superbloom before but you've heard about them, how seeds get blown into Gem's crater and spend years waiting for just the right conditions to suddenly burst out all together in one mass growth. The soaking rain must have gone in deep and been just enough to make the life beneath their feet stir. Looking to Leviathan you give them a little wave and turn to climb up your own house. You absolutely have to see this from above.

Dex 3 + Athletics 3 + Urban Traversal 1 = 3 Successes. No problem!

You scale the wall better than the cat could have; the smooth wall doesn't leave much to hold onto but all you need is a window sill to kick off and you can vault yourself up high enough to grab onto the edge of the slightly sloped roof and then pull yourself up. Leviathan gives you a deadpan stare from the ground and then hops up onto the window sill to lurk. Staring down at the flowers, your new housemate enjoys a nice warm spot in the sun.

Essence 1 = One success. Small progress.

Finding a spot a little out of the way on the roofs of the nearby neighbourhood, you make sure no one else is roof hopping for the day and then take the key out of your pocket, once again cursing at how the end of it sticks to the leather every damn time. The gold of the lion key glints in the late day sun and it has a warmth to the metal that's soothing to turn over in your fingers. You try pressing at the gemstones to see if they serve some kind of function but that doesn't seem to do anything and waving it about like a dowsing rod just makes you feel silly. Something does feel subtly strange when you hold the key up to the sun but it's a fleeting feeling, like catching the sound of a faint whisper in another room.

You settle for moving about and checking on it occasionally, hoping that feeling gets stronger or some idea comes to you. The riot of blue flowers in the streets below has completely fouled up the usual flow of carts. As they grind their way through endless fields of flowers an oily smear slowly builds on their wheels and you can see more than one frustrated looking horse driver scraping the stuff off with the sides of their boots. You can sympathize, there was no work for all but the most determined while the flooding was on and now this? Nature is being cruel.

Nature should leave it to the experts, she still has a lot to learn about cruelty. As you crawl along a fancy sloped and tiled roof, testing each one cautiously before putting your weight on it, you're in the perfect spot to see a wagon bearing the Guild's sigil on the canvas coverings roll slowly up a side street that you know for sure doesn't have a way back out. You're just about to yell a warning and save them a rather annoying few hours of trying to back up two trapped horses when the snapping of a string beats you to it. There's a thump as a crossbow bolt punches through the canvas, while the driver and his assistant hop down and run for the end of the alley.

Three people come out of the buildings, two men and one woman, quickly surrounding the wagon. They're dressed in simple clothes that wouldn't have looked out of place on any street, each bearing a rather finely made and heavy as hell looking crossbow that absolutely would turn heads. Taking it in turns to pump bolt after bolt into the canvas, the grinding crank of the crossbows reloading is the perfect cover for sound to let you move slowly back up and behind the lip of the roof. You'd love to help but it is simply too far off for you to throw anything that'd land even close to where this was happening. Worse yet, the crossbows they were using might not have the same trouble crossing that range; a Guild guard jumps out of the back between shots, no doubt hoping to get a chance to at least flee and catches a bolt to the chest that punches through his breastplate with ease. There's some frightful power behind those things.

It only takes a few minutes but eventually they either run out of shots or are satisfied that whatever is inside is thoroughly disposed of. The two drivers cowering at the end of the alley straighten up and there's a quick discussion between them and the taller of the men in plain clothes. Some small bags of money change hands and the driver and assistant run for it. It's a hell of a distance but you do your best to try and catch what everyone looks like as they unload a few crates off the back of the carts and take them away into the surrounding houses, then come back to light the rest of it on fire.

You take that as your cue to get out of there, sliding down the roof edge away from them and catching yourself on the edge. You've seen a few robberies in your time and that was anything but the usual mad chaotic rush of people drunk on adrenaline and the ideas of riches. They'd known what they were doing and gone through it all with a disturbing quiet professionalism, Wave had said the Guild was having troubles but once again she'd really downplayed just how bad it was. It'd be great if she'd stop doing that.

You don't want to completely give up on the key, but whatever feeling you were getting from it is being pushed out by what you've just seen. You've narrowed down the area some if this is actually working, but it's still a huge area to search. Sitting on the edge of the tallest roof nearby, you look away from the plume of black smoke sent up by the burning wagon and scan across a city now plagued with flowers for a familiar sight. Your eyes settle on a collection of tents and patched-up hovels. The Old Brothers are in this part of the city and with a pretty good motive to want the chest back, they'll make a sensible next stop for you.

Maybe you can try this whole key thing again when you've settled your head, or at least decided it's not sun stroke.

Something about the Old Brothers really didn't sit right with you when you spoke with them. Yes, a gathering of hard-bitten refugee soldiers is never going to look respectable but something about the way they moved, something about the way they looked at you… no, those are excuses. It's their leader Mishri's absolute hatred for Guild Prince Cheshago and his too-quick insistence that none of his people could have done the dastardly deed. You can't see how they'd have had the means or opportunity of knocking off someone like Cheshago but they certainly had ample motive. And you are devastatingly familiar with arranging things so that people will underestimate you. By all appearances the Old Brothers are poor as dirt and ragged to the bone, but their weapons are suspiciously good quality and the combat experience they have between them can easily give any gang a run for their money. So some due diligence is in order, and luckily for you that due diligence can mostly be done in taverns and marketplaces and squares.

The beer flows freely and you get some light shopping done and take a moment to admire not only the blue flowers everywhere (many being gathered by lovers who see their one chance to really make an impression), but a patch of yellow and red flowers vining their way through cracks in hard black rock - life finds a way to flourish no matter how harsh the environment. By the time evening is giving way to night you've done a lot of due diligence.

Intelligence 4 + Investigation 4 = 7 successes. Absolutely crushed it.

And it turns out they're a name on a surprising number of lips. They've only been in Gem a couple of years but they've resisted attempts to push them out from four street gangs and one actual mercenary group. They've avoided the attention of the powers-that-be mostly by keeping to themselves and not bothering anyone, but any hand that approaches them in hostility seems to get decisively cut off.

There are a lot of theories on why that is. Talk of dark magic and witches dancing naked in the moonlight. (Admittedly witches dancing naked in the moonlight is a popular explanation for anything strange but with so much weirdness happening around you, you give it a little more credence now.) Talk of how they have the run of a secret undercity under Gem, completely separate from the one that everyone already knows about. Some of the more informed rumors talk about their bonds - about the scars that each fully-fledged Old Brother has on their wrist, where they've cut themselves and let their blood flow and mix with that of their brothers. You had assumed that it was just a term of fellowship, but it may well be that each of them is a blood-brother or blood-sister.

You get in on a game of darts with an old soldier, left arm cut clean off just above the elbow and the flesh scarred over to leave a grisly stub, who claims he'd wanted to join their ranks until he found out that he'd be expected to tithe to the fallen. Actual wealth if he had it, craftwork and prayers if he didn't, and in a low voice he tells you his own personal theory on those scars - that the Brothers give blood to their dead. He's a lot fuzzier on what that actually means or does but he's unjustifiably certain that it can't mean anything good. While he's happy to talk your ear off about his wild speculations for as long as you're willing to keep buying drinks the more drinks you put into him the wilder the ideas come out and eventually you decide you've poisoned this well for the day and flee while you can.

You've heard a thing or two about ghost ghosts - not the hungry sort that you've recently had trouble with. Mostly stories, but there are some commonalities. The jokes about mothers-in-law coming back to the dead to hassle people are near-universal and it's possible that at one time they were even funny, but they also had a grain of truth to them. If being a relative is actually important to ghosts somehow, then it's possible the Old Brothers isn't just a name but some kind of trick they're using to actually become a family in the eyes of whatever makes ghosts work they way they do. So, poor and ragged because life is hard, but also because they're giving of what little they have to the dead.

Your theory is still taking shape and it's far from hard evidence of guilt, but assuming even a hundredth of ghost stories you've heard are true then you've already got motive and this is a pretty solid avenue for establishing means.

Forewarned is forearmed, but if you're going to get real proof of any misdeeds you're going to have to dig deeper, and that means paying a visit.

…

Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 = 1 success vs Perception 2 + Awareness 2 = 2 successes. Spotted!

It starts off badly. There are fires burning in their encampment now and other people seem to steer clear of the place at night, which means one of their sentries notices you creeping up immediately. Fortunately he doesn't seem inclined to immediate violence, only sternly asking you who you are and why you're here, a perfectly reasonable question backed by a perfectly reasonable amount of spear.

Manipulation 3 + Presence 1 = 2 successes, exploiting a Major Intimacy results in success.

"Oh! I'm just here for the funeral," you think fast and hit upon just about the only friendly reason you could possibly be here, willing your face to stay straight and not give away your nervousness, willing your eyes to stay on his face and not on his spear-point. "For little Hasa's father? I never got his name but I helped carve a clay warrior for him and I wanted to see it sent off. Is that tonight?"

His stiff manner visibly relaxes, he rolls his shoulders and raises his spear.

"You're the one who was talking with Mishri. He made an impression, yes?"

"He absolutely did do that," you say, and you don't even have to lie now.

"Keep to the path," he thumbs over his shoulder, "make sure not to get lost."

Under his watchful eye there's no chance to get lost - you'll have to wait for a better opportunity to sneak off and have a look later.

Either you're secretly a sorcerer or you've really lucked out because there is a gathering in the encampment. You notice Hasa in something resembling a place of honour. Your terracotta warrior is up front and center - or at least you assume it is, because there's a legitimate company of them laid out, together with horses and there's a larger and more elaborate clay horse at the head of the formation, presumably for the deceased. There's what looks like fruit, an abundance of blue petals arranged into a wreath and a lot of bits and bobs you can't identify from your angle. Even from this distance the smell of incense tickles your nostrils and threatens to make you sneeze. It might not be expensive Sijani funeral priests but they must have really liked this guy because he is getting a hell of a send-off.

There's no solemn ceremony here, instead the Old Brothers are drinking and swapping tales of the deceased among each other in a noisy din that you find yourself easily lost in. You pick up that the name of the man who died was Hayran and that the Guild striking him down is still a very sore spot. You've your suspicions that Cheshago hasn't been working for the Guild's interests for some time, but this certainly isn't the place to bring that up so you nod along and listen. They're all more than happy to do all the talking.

Together up front with Mishri there are several men you haven't seen before. That's not news by itself, the set of people you didn't meet in the encampment is pretty close to "all of them" but the bald one on the far left has a deathly pallor to his skin and as you wind your way through the crowd to get closer you see him sniff the air. It's such a deliberate action that you stop moving closer and find a group to hide in where you can surreptitiously keep an eye on them instead. He leans in to speak to Mishri and you try to tune out a far too long and rambling story about a night out drinking with Hayran and try to listen in on Mishri's group instead.

Perception 3 + Awareness 3 = 3 successes. Thoroughly adequate!

"I smell his killer's blood," the pallid one says to Mishri, "Cheshago's blood. Just a trace. Near."

"How is that possible? They told me his body was burned to ash," Mishri replies, brow furrowed.

"Merchants? Lying? To you?" the man says in mock horror, "I can't imagine they would ever tell you something just to be rid of you. Or maybe rumors of his death have been… greatly exaggerated."

Mishri makes a sour face as if to tell him to knock it off. "Look into it."

Intelligence 4 + Occult 2 = 4 successes. Yeah, there's a problem.

There's definitely something wrong with this situation - and with this individual. First the pallor, but lots of people don't enjoy going outside in this city. Second, and more importantly, as you look more closely and edge around to get a better angle, you realize that Mishri and everyone else nearby casts two shadows but this person has only one - while the firelight seems to affect him normally, in the moonlight he has no shadow.

Seems the rumors of the Old Brothers' dead coming back to help them aren't just hot air.

Also on the list of things wrong with this situation - "look into it" sounds properly ominous but a little more pressing is that the only person here you're aware of that has even been in the same room with Cheshago's blood recently is you. The hell kind of thing is that guy if he can smell two-day-old traces of blood, traces which spent hours getting rained on afterward? Well, a ghost, obviously, but not the slathering kind that Cheshago had turned into. One that can still think for itself, which just makes it all the more dangerous.

Time to go, you turn to make your way out and everyone goes silent. Flinching, you're immensely relieved to see it isn't because of you and instead everyone is lining up into rows. You take your spot so you can quickly catch your breath.

Mishri is at the front of the ceremony now, his hands spread out wide.

"Brothers," he says, "if I might have just a moment of your time."

You can see the pallid man isn't playing along with this though, moving along the lines of people as everyone gets ready for a sermon. Carefully looking around at the mass of lines, you're glad Hayran was so damn popular. Now you just have to make sure you don't end up joining him.

What do you do?

[ ] - Play it cool. You can wait a sermon out and then get clear. The sweet smell of the blue flowers will hopefully disguise the smell long enough.
[ ] - Deal with the smell. You can try to sniff the blood out first and cut the offending part out of your coat. It's going to be hard to do subtly, but it's a lot less obvious than leaving the rows.
[ ] - Time to go. Try to sneak off when the pallid man isn't looking. It's not going to be easy to make a quiet exit without people noticing, but hopefully no one will try to stop you.
[ ] - Time to go, just RUN. You've just seen a ghost! This is the time for running.
[ ] - Other (Write-in)

If things don't go to plan, do you tap a helping card?
[ ] - Don't use The Spire. You have smoke and nail bombs and you are very good at running, you don't need faerie magic to make this escape.
[ ] - The Spire. Speed. Outrun the guards and the ghost, hope it lasts long enough to see you clear of both.
[ ] - The Spire. Barrier. Block it off and hope your way is clear out of there.

Guancyto · Nov 4, 2019

Cut It Out 4
Play It Cool 2

Spire Escape 6

Mishri is giving an impassioned speech but it's impossible to focus on it with the sound of your own heart drumming in your ears. Swallowing a lump in your throat you fall back on what's kept you alive all these years. Taking a breath when you need to and thinking fast. A blood spot from the crime scene will be hard to find, but if you think out the options you might stand a chance. You've been absolutely pelted with rain so the outside of the coat seems unlikely and all your other clothes are different to what you wore that day. Most likely the hem of your coat brushed against the blood at some point in that mad scramble to get out. So all you have to do is find the stain, surreptitiously cut it off and drop it in a nearby fire and you'll never get found out at all. Casually, as if just working life back into your legs you flutter your coat to check the edges.

Perception 3 + Investigation 4 = Zero successes. Straight failure.

There's no stain, there's no stain. FUCK. There's no stain! How in the silent winds of hell are you going to-

Wits 2 + Integrity 3 vs Perception ? + Investigation ? = botch vs 2 successes. We give ourselves away pretty thoroughly but it's not the end of the world.

You look up from the hem of your coat and stare right into a pale face inches away from your own. Black pitch bleeding from his eyes and skin sallow, the whole face is elongated like someone has grabbed the jaw and just pulled incredibly hard. You let out a terrified and completely undignified squawk that stops proceedings cold. Mishri looks at you, looks at the ghost (whose face is definitely just a face now) and just gives him a look and you really hope it means "please stop terrifying the poor woman it's not funny" but looks are an incredibly versatile means of communication and you don't know either of them well enough to interpret.

Your heart is pounding in your chest as the sermon continues and the ghost's grim face slowly breaks into a smile and then a deep belly laugh. He offers you a drink which you immediately decline, even though your throat is probably the driest thing from here to the pole of Fire.

"Quite the reaction," he says, and you don't even pretend to focus on the sermon as you carefully watch his every move just in case he suddenly becomes hostile. He notices of course, but doesn't seem bothered by it as he takes a drink. You brace yourself to prevent flinching if it'll pour right back out of him and your nerves are incredibly thankful it doesn't.

"I won't insult you by telling you to relax," he says as he swishes the bottle in the air, "but you have nothing to fear here if you mean no harm to these people. Live and let live?"

You swallow hard, "you'll excuse me if I don't take your word for it."

"Wise. A body does live longer if the wearer is careful," he acknowledges, tipping the bottle your way for emphasis, "so let's build a little trust. I am Dreams of Red Sands. Just Red to my friends and to mysterious strangers in fine coats."

Red stares at you as he picks at the edges of your coat as if expecting he'd get a reply, you know you should humour him but you're busy furiously calculating if you should say your name or not and the moment passes.

"Don't worry dear, I'll pick out a name for you if you've mislaid it." Red says with a sly smile, "but while we're getting friendly I would like to know what relation you might have to a late Guild Prince. I think you know the one I mean."

Manipulation 3 + Presence 1 + 2 clue (knows Cheshago's business) vs Perception ? + Investigation ? = botch vs 4 successes. Did not fool him.

"Who, me?" you say, pressing a hand to your chest and giving Red a shocked look, "I wouldn't know a thing about him, I'm only looking into his death because it's such a fascinating case! I'm an investigator for fun!"

He gives you a look and yeah you wouldn't have bought that either. A failure of a bluff that spectacular is like ice water straight into the veins, you can see his patience wearing thin and you don't want to know what happens when it snaps.

"All right, the Guild wants to know who killed him, so they hired me. I'm not really one of them though. Just a freelancer. Four days ago I was still finding people's cats."

Dreams of Red Sands chews on his tongue for a bit, sending shivers down your spine as you can't discern if they're actually damaging it. "I wondered who they would appoint," he says once he's made up his mind about you. "A cat-catcher sent after a lion. Why, it's almost like they don't want the killer found. You did at least see the body?"

Honesty is working and you don't think you're really giving away more than you already have so you keep it up.

"They might have done better to send a real chirurgeon, I made a good mess of things."

Red takes a bit to think about that too. You don't like the smile he gets when he's done. "Something happened that drew your blood too, didn't it? Yours and his, blended together. There's more steel in your spine than first meets the eye, cat-catcher."

He takes a swig of his drink and then leans forward pressing it into your grip. You sniff at the bottle he handed you and wrinkle your nose. It smells awful, if he thinks you're going to drink it, he'll have to hold you down first.

"You're clearly not here to mourn," he says when you pass up the chance, "so you've came for the same reason as the Despot's hound. Following a trail blindly, now the Hound they follow their nose and bite whatever lies at the end. A cat-catcher though, they might know better than to risk getting scratched. If I were at the end of one of those trails, I think it might be you I should worry about."

He claws at the air and laughs again, it's a little annoying that it's actually a nice laugh, under better conditions maybe even infectious. In books being acknowledged as an equal by a killer is a point of pride for an investigator but as you look at his crooked smile you can't help but feel a gnawing sense of dread that something terrifying has suddenly deigned to truly acknowledge you.

"Are you at the end of one of those trails?" you ask, determined to get at least something out of this.

Manipulation 3 + Investigation 4 = 4 successes. Worked!

Red shakes his head and laughs again. Apparently blunt is the way to go with this guy. "Nothing so dramatic. Like you, I am a free lance often thrust into places I don't belong. A tool of those with the means to buy my soul, for a time. If you ever find yourself in possession of great wealth or a spare pint of blood, you'll find that my services are well worth the price."

However you were expecting this conversation to go, it wasn't like this. "And these guys? I figured you were one of them." You gesture to the ceremony and the sermon.

"I died far too early to make the cut, but they do something that people should have long ago. They're building a kingdom that will one day welcome them all as the heroes they truly are. They've been kind enough to lend a sheltering wing to soldiers who died forgotten by those who promised them the heavens. Their enemies are my enemies."

Enough beating around the bush. If your cards are already on the table you might as well make a bet.

"Did they hire you to kill Cheshago?"

"There are no shortage of killers in the Underworld. You sold your soul to the Guild, so you know who has deep pockets in this city," he laughs and shakes his head again, looking back to Mishri, "do they look like they could afford that?"

"It's an expensive funeral, Dreams of Red Sands," you say, not giving up on this so easily or willing to go along with their cute nicknames, "and I've seen the steel they have, it isn't cheap. Money is coming in from somewhere."

"It is coming in certainly, but soon there will be another funeral. Then another. They've no coin to waste chasing justice in this life, when there's a far better waiting for them soon enough."

"But plenty of blood, I know they donate that," you say, tapping your wrist where you'd learned they drained themselves.

"Blood is power, true, but I'd be a fool to sell myself so cheaply. You don't kill a Guild Prince just to fill your belly. There's far easier meals to be had if you're that desperate."

"But you are a killer?" you say, pressing them for a straight answer.

"You're in the company of Soldiers, cat-catcher. We're all killers. Even kind Mishri has made widows and orphans. We've argued about it before, if he's really just wanting his Brothers' dues, or if he's afraid of who might be waiting for them when that final day comes."

"Red!" Mishri calls as if summoned by his own name. His sermon must have ended at some point but you were far too distracted to notice. "Are you putting the fright on a guest?"

Dreams of Red Sands smiles at Mishri and takes back his drink off you, offering it out to the man. "Perhaps we should be the ones who are frightened, Mishri old friend. Come, I've quite a tale to tell you."

Mishri gives you an apologetic glance as he's dragged away and you ease up your fingers over the card you'd had in a death grip in your pocket. Somehow you got out of that without needing to use it and you don't waste the opportunity to leave before Mishri and Dreams of Red Sands come back with more questions. You don't have any answers they'll enjoy hearing.

Sharell doesn't get much more sleep that night for obvious reasons but escaping with the card unused isn't so bad, on to a new day!

As usual pick two targets for investigation and as many parts underneath it as you want unless it says otherwise.

Raicho has moved out of the Midnight Tales option if you're looking for her and is now in the Wagon Robbery instead. This isn't an important thing, it's just to avoid a wasted action when you find out she isn't on duty today. Also cleared up some actions that could easily be covered by others just to try to shorten the list a little.

This investigation phase runs from early morning until just after midday, so sleep isn't an option right now.

[ ] DIAMOND IN YOUR KNAPSACK
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack and Cheshago had a deal, confront him about it and shake something loose.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at war with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. Pretend to be on his side, find out what you can.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at 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 and find out what you're really dealing with.

[ ] WAGON ROBBERY
PICK ONE
-[ ] Track down the driver and assistant who got paid off. Try to subtly convince them to give up their side of the story.
-[ ] Raicho knows the mercenary life, find her and ask her if she knows any of the three people who did the hit.
-[ ] Wave Crashes Against the Rocks surely knows her wagon got hit, but you know a bit more of the story than she does. Find out if it'd be of any help to her.

[ ] MIDNIGHT TALES
-[ ] 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.

[ ] THE GILDED CHEST AND THE GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
-[ ] You've got a special key that unlocks a very specific chest. Searching seemed to work better in the sun, wrap up and get all the water you can then go searching at high noon.
-[ ] You're not a poet, these books must still hold some secrets. Samet of Iblan is well read, he might be able to make more sense of it than you can.
-[ ] You're not a poet, these books must still hold some secrets. See how Niall's rats are doing and pick his occult mind.

[ ] LOST SOUL AT THE SUN MARKET
-[ ] Go pay Steals Kisses and the rest of your friends a visit and make sure they're all right after being shook down. You need some friends you can trust right now.
-[ ] The Honest Merchant is such a charming fellow. You need another crack at his goods if you're going to survive this.

[ ] OLD BROTHERS
-[ ] 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. Tell Waves that you've found the killer and let her deal with them. (If this action is chosen no other Old Brother actions will be taken)
-[ ] A pint of blood can go a long way. Pay Dreams of Red Sands' price (Write in what you ask for).
-[ ] Great wealth, huh? The Guild owes you one, it can pay you so you can pay Red. (Write in what you ask for and go big; this will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] 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.
-[ ] The Despot has a low-key ghost cult operating right under his nose. Is that good? Is that bad? Is that something you can use? Do some research with Samet of Iblan and his mountain of legal precedent to find out if that's illegal or not.

[ ] 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
-[ ] You know who they are and some notion of what they're about, but you need more information in case you run into them again. Keep a low profile and ask around.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Stalk them, find out what they're up to and where they're going.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Find out where they live, break in and toss the place.
-[ ] Cut the bullshit. You know they're heavily involved in this, and even what their status is - go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
-[ ] No, seriously, cut the bullshit. Ask Waves Crashes Upon the Rocks to see that they meet with an accident. (This will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] Other
-[ ] Write in (If your write in isn't chosen first time round it'll be added as an option in future investigation rounds to an appropriate category, as long as it still makes sense to pursue.)

And one final free choice, unlocked by our new points of occult.
TEARS OF THE SEA
-[ ] Buy salt. You need a lot of it if you're going to be dealing with ghosts again. It'll help you sleep a lot easier if nothing else. (Your Resource dot will be temporarily expended on this. It will recover if you get a future payout or sell something of value.)
-[ ] Don't buy salt. You've met a lot of ghosts, but it's been a while since one tried to kill you. The coin might be more useful later on.

Guancyto · Nov 7, 2019

Take the Book to Niall 3

Midnight Tales Investigation - Legal 2
Midnight Tales Investigation - Illegal 2 Sudden death round!

Despot - Investigate Brothers' Legality 2
Investigate Feathers 1

Buy Salt 5

Day 4

A fitful attempt at catching some sleep ends unsuccessfully when Leviathan climbs up onto the bed, sits on your chest and mewls until you get up to feed him. You consider taking him with you today as punishment, but as amusing as it would be to see how a cat reacts to Niall's shrine, it's just a little too cruel for you to go through with. Slicing up some pears and adding a dash of milk, you resolve to pick up some proper food for him now that he seems happy to be sticking around.

You sneak out while Leviathan is still eating the sticky smell of the superbloom still thick in the air. The Temple of Pan Yon is seeing a rare moment of popularity: as the goddess of free goods, her temple is usually only visited by the occasional desperate beggar or citizens down on their luck, but with a rainstorm of free water followed by streets full of free flowers people are making sure they put in their thanks just in case she decides they aren't appreciating it properly and makes moves to take it away.

The Eatery only ever really sees that kind of surge in popularity when plague or famine hit Gem hard and bodies in the streets become such a problem that you need the gods of vermin, insects and jackals to step in. Keeping clear of the drone hum of the hive Temple, you edge round the square and slip in Templeton's house, now bone dry with pews and tables set back where they should be and once again covered thick with swarms of furry rats. It's rare to see anyone else here this early, but a woman is already waiting, a few large black rats on her lap that she's feeding with bits of bread she's picking off a rather hard looking loaf.

She has an interesting get-up, brightly coloured strips of cloth tied around her in loops, some forming belts and other skirts or shawls in a messy riot of colours. It works somehow, though her shaggy black hair does spoil the effect; no amount of beaded necklaces woven into it to give it shape can hide how much of a greasy mess it is.

"He'll be back shortly," she says, not looking up from her feeding. "Don't be scared to push off a few rats off and take a seat.."

You take her up on it, nudging a few of the smaller greys and browns out onto the floor and sitting quickly before they can get back. You've known Niall long enough to learn his rats are cleaner than most people in the city and are very careful about disease. How they're so well behaved is a mystery you're still working on, Niall loves to turn that question into more attempts to push religious teachings into your head so you figure it's just God Stuff at work.

"Sharell" you say, giving a nod. "I've been a friend of Niall's for ages, I know they don't bite."

This seems to amuse her and she looks up from her feeding finally.

"You're quite confident about that, usually feeling sure something won't hurt you is a good way to get hurt," she says, stroking the black rats gathered up in her lap. "I'm Misery."

"Misery?" you say, already a little unsettled. "That short for something?"

"No."

Right, of course it isn't. You could have maybe gone a few hours without meeting someone new and creepy.

Misery: Charisma 4 + Performance 4. Sharell has a -1 Resolve Penalty currently for reasons. So this succeeds super easily.

She sees your discomfort and smiles wider, gathering up the rats on her laps in her arms and putting one up on her shoulder with a little ruffle of its fur and a chittering squeak that's the closest a rat is going to get to giggles. The rest she scatters on the floor, before dusting off her hands. The air's sweet with flowers instead of the smell of rat for a change here and it's hard to not be amused at the sight of a shoulder pet rat, the fat thing looking absolutely bemused about what it was meant to do up there, whiskers twitching furiously.

"I didn't pick the name," she says, "it doesn't really suit me anymore, but I'm not sure if I should get rid of it just yet. Who knows what the future holds, you know?"

"Absolutely. Sometimes I feel quite like Sharell and sometimes I barely feel it at all," you nod.

She pulls a face at you.

"Hey! You're the one who wants to share all with Sharell," you say, delighting in how she recoils from the pun.

"You sure you're a friend of Niall's? This seems a little too cruel for him."

"Until I run out of rat jokes, which I never will," you say, "it's how I kept my nerve at first, before I learned to relax around him."

"Rat Jokes?"

"Hey it works, jokes make things easier to cope with."

"Ah, well I'm not good at that," she says, one finger idly playing with the rat on her shoulder as she looks up to the ceiling.

"Coping?"

"Jokes."

That gets an awkward silence between the pair of you, one you can't help but fill.

"You know further down South they have rats that are crossed with elephants. Want to know what they're called?"

"If this is a joke I'm going to will them to bite you."

"Ah yeah. That's fair. It's not r-elephant anyway."

Intelligence 2 + Integrity 4. 3 Successes, she succeeds

She wiggles a hand at you while staring daggers, but you somehow miraculously remain unbitten and just smirk back, very proud of yourself right now.

"Sharell!" Niall calls as he comes into the temple, holding a large basket in both arms. "You're back already? Did my sermons touch your heart at last?"

"It's about ghosts and poetry."

"Of course it is. Well, come help me with this first. Oh, have you met Misery?"

"I was just making friends with her," you say as you get up to go help him bring the basket in.

"No, I was making friends," Misery says, "Sharell has instead made an enemy"

"Oh sorry Misery, I'm all full up on those. But I have space for a friend."

Niall laughs as you hoist the basket onto the table and begins to unpack the groceries there, rats lining up eagerly to see if they're going to get anything.

"Well you're both in good spirits, so I'll try not to worry about it. Let's deal with the ghosts first, poetry isn't something we can rush. I trust you took my sage advice and did not go and try mess with souls?" Niall says as he shucks some corn and lays it out for the expectant rats.

"I'm an investigator not a necromancer Niall, you know I wouldn't. But they do keep turning up and it's starting to worry me."

Niall fishes into his bag of groceries and comes out with a bag of salt, tossing it into your arms. You catch it, but it's pretty darn heavy.

"Ghosts can't cross salt or germinated grain, circle the room you're in if you're worried about them and they'll leave be. Most ghosts are more confused than trouble, so whatever you're doing to antagonize them I would ask you to stop if you could. You'll thank me for it! A donation would be appreciated as well, Salt's not cheap and now I'll need to get more later," Niall says, clearly a little concerned for you.

"How did you get into trouble with ghosts?" Misery asks casually, back in her seat with her rats now.

You don't really want to land them in further trouble, so you deflect a little.

"I had a fright with one a little while back, I just want to be sure."

Misery: Perception 5 + Socialize 2 = Botch! She gives something up instead.

"They can be quite frightening," she says with a nod. She says it with such certainty that you're immediately suspicious she's speaking from experience. You never did ask why she was here exactly.

"Also I found a book that I think has some interesting secrets in it," you say, returning your attention to Niall. "Would you mind taking a look at it? It's a bit old and strange, but I think it might actually be really important?"

"Of course," Niall says, "not right now. Misery and I have some business to attend to before the sun gets too high."

"Business?" you say, "I thought she was here to mourn?"

"No no!" Niall says, shaking his head "Did she not tell you?"

Perception 3 + Socialize 1 = 1 Success. Nope!

"Oh! You're dating! Wow, congratulations! She seems nice," you say clapping your hands together.

The pair of them choke in unison, which makes being wrong totally worth it.

"No! Heaven above no Sharell, she's half my age!"

Misery gives him a look.

"Ah! I mean the age difference is of course far greater than simply half, I didn't mean to insinuate you were old," Niall says, "Poetry! Yes, please Sharell."

You take out the Collected Poetry of the Avana Lineage and he leafs through it, picking a few pages at random.

"Maidens? Ah sutras, my tutor taught us the few he knew but they were all about Endings, this seems a lot more broad. You think this relevant?"

You nod. "Incredibly. I've put bookmarks on the pages, I could really use a better explanation of it."

"Would you mind me helping?" Misery asks, the rats on her swirling in her lap and then off to the ground as she stands. She's just a little taller than you but that isn't anything to brag about.

Perception 3 + Socialize 1 = 1 Success. Still nope!

"If Niall is okay with it, then I don't see why not," you say, choosing to trust Niall's judgement of character. From the sounds of it, the two will be talking anyway, so it's not like saying no will really do much.

"I've not read poetry in a long time, but I might have some insights."

"Part of your studies?" Niall says "Oh yes! Misery here is an Exorcist and old friend, she comes by to help me check on the tombs when it's our turn in the Eatery to go down there and make sure all is laying as it should."

You look at her suspiciously, you've never heard about this. But then your time with Niall is pretty infrequent on account of all the rats. It's not impossible you've just missed her until now.

"Well it'd be a help for certain. Any Exorcist tips?"

"Don't fight ghosts? Leave it to the experts," Misery says.

"Oh thanks, you're a big help."

"You're one of the few who can say that."

It's your turn to pull a face at her, taking out a purse and putting it beside Niall's basket. "For the salt and to buy some treats for the rats. Thank you for this, will it take you long to get to?"

"Assuming you don't live in a crate I can visit you later," Misery says, "and tell you if your taste in poetry is any better than your jokes."

"And I set such a high bar! If I'd known I'd have saved up the good stuff," you say, giving a little bow and getting out there before she really does work out how to get the rats to eat you.

It's been several days since you were last at the Midnight House of the Thousand Tales. It's one thing to drop by at night when business has closed down and all sensible folk are asleep in their beds but quite another to visit during the day. Jackal-masked guards are out in force and you don't see the relatively friendly shape of Raicho anywhere to make this easy. Instead you're temporarily accosted by an entirely new wall of meat and you're a little low on smokes, so it's worrisome for a moment if you're going to be able to bribe them for entry, but they let you past after only a little bit of checking inside so either you're expected or you've caught them at a better time.

Which of those is clear almost immediately, as the merchant who handled you before and did a fair job of trying to kill you is brought out to meet you in the front hall. He's wearing a new pair of dark glasses that are propped up on a nose that's sporting a real beauty of a purple bruise, - your guess is it's had one or two days to heal and it still looks like shit. You know two people who have paid him a visit since you left and apparently one of them really didn't like what they heard.

"Ah, miss…" he spreads his arms wide like he's greeting an old friend - undermined pretty much immediately when he blanks on your name. You're going to fucking kill him.

Manipulation 3 + Presence 1 = 4 successes. Bullshit successfully cut.

"Zenteno," you say, "as in, you have ten zeconds until I shove firedust down your throat and light it up."

You met one person today who appreciated your jokes (probably) but the groan he gives is of a very different sort.

"Meet me in my office," he says, sounding almost resigned and turning to go before you step in front of him. The guards flinch and move their hands to their weapons, but you haven't actually done anything hostile yet.

"In a parlor, or on a balcony - somewhere where we can be seen. You tried to kill me, you miserable son of a bitch. You think I'm going to your office?"

"I didn't know that was going to happen! How could I have? How should I have?" He's babbling, if he doesn't stop soon you might have to slap him.

"Now."

…

It's quite a lovely balcony - the carpet of blue flowers stretches across the city and the wind drifts in bringing the mouthwatering smell of a nearby bakery, where elegant chairs have been set up, tea is being served by a girl with long legs and a frilly black-and-white outfit, and although everyone is too far to hear what you're saying, half the city can see you talk.

You are stone-faced - the merchant is wringing his hands and rubbing his neck and trying to wipe away the sweat on his brow, and he smiles at you like that's going to engender some kind of reaction. But you are iron - and if you have to be honest, you're really enjoying seeing him sweat.

"Why did you lock me in with a hungry ghost?"

"It's standard procedure! We couldn't have you running about the place. So many valuables that could just go missing."

"Wrong answer." You take one of your nail bombs out of your coat and start gently tossing and catching it. "Why did you lock me in with a hungry ghost?"

His eyes are shaded by the glasses but you can see just the edge of them tracking the bomb, up and down, up and down, up and down.

"If I tell you, will you put that away?"

"Oh this?" you say, turning the converted toy ball in your hand. "You don't like toys?"

"I don't like those ones."

"Been checking up on me have you, Teleji?" you say with a smile as he flinches at you using his name. It'd been pretty easy to ask around for it, but it was clear he didn't like you'd been doing it.

"Just due diligence. It's... it's part of my job."

"And is locking me up with killer ghosts also part of your job?" you say, rolling the ball along your palms with the little metal striker clattering as it runs over your fingers.. He really doesn't like the clicking sound it makes.

"No! That was not my intention, I swear. You have to believe me," he says, pressed firmly back into his seat.

"Depends on what you tell me. Because from my end it looked like you did it on purpose."

"I know this looks bad. But it's worse, so much worse! He was under our protection. He was in our house!"

"You're rambling," you start to toss it from hand to hand.

"Ten Feathers is a brute, you know! An awful, terrible, torturing brute and when I was expecting them, well you turn up instead! I had no idea who you were, but the Guild felt you were important enough to send and they're little better than the Despot. So I thought, well I thought what if the pair of you meet up? Better to keep you separated or you'd start fighting over the crime scene or even worse, you'd start collaborating."

Is this guy capable of digging himself out of the hole he's in? Aren't merchants supposed to be smart?

"Obviously I had no idea that a man killed so soon would rise as a monster. How could I have known? And and and! We suffered a great deal of damages from it! A whole shelf of dream diaries from Chiaroscuro, totally torched. We're still refurbishing the room, and it certainly won't be cheap!"

"How very tragic for you." you say, putting on a pout for them "But please, let's do dig into that. When did Cheshago die? The way you're so interested in covering your ass, I'm starting to think you might have tried to cover that up too."

"W-w-w-we reported it as soon as we found out, of course. H-he requested the use of one of our private rooms and bought one of our dreamstones-"

"Why?" and when you see him hesitate toss the nail bomb forward and bounce it off his forehead, catching it right back in your palm. He tries to raise his arms to shield his face far too late, spilling his tea and dropping his cup.

The servant in the frilly dress who is trying to serve you both takes it with surprisingly good grace, putting out a new cup for him and pouring as you lean over him, studiously ignoring everything that doesn't involve her very direct duties.

Manipulation 3 + Investigation 4 = 4 successes. Rolled him like a cheap cigar.

"T-t-there, there was," he starts as soon as he's caught his breath, "I am given to understand, an individual - dead or alive, it wasn't clear - who he needed to find out something from. Dreamstones will let you collect or experience dreams - we sell pleasant dreams and nightmares to anyone who wants a new experience. We told him they couldn't do anything for memories but he didn't seem to care."

"And did he collect anything with that dreamstone? Memories or otherwise?"

"Certainly I don't know that! Why would I know that?"

You're running short on ideas on how to string this guy along with the threat of violence, so you just bare your teeth. He grimaces - how badly did Ten Feathers or Mishri work this guy over? (It was probably Ten Feathers, but after last night you're trying not to make assumptions.)

"If he did happen to have a dreamstone it was of course our property, since he hadn't paid for it yet. They're incredibly valuable, we can't just leave something like that lying about."

"I knew you'd cleaned up that crime scene a little. Do you still have it?"

"I…" he's nodding his head slightly like a man coming to a decision, "miss…"

Oh for fuck's sake. "Zenteno. Write it down, Teleji."

"Miss Zenteno, am I given to understand that you're in the Guild's good graces?"

The sound of your harrumph startles even the so far impassive servant, who blushes as she stands waiting. Lucky for her Teleji is far too focused on you to notice.

"W-well, if you are, or were, or could be… the Despot's personal Hound has taken an interest in our affairs even though we are most certainly completely innocent in everything we are accused of, and the Hound, well…"

"...doesn't care as much about guilt as they should, right?" The memory of the faeblood casually twirling their firewand, the flame-spewing rifle spinning like a staff, comes unbidden.

"Yes! It's only sensible of us to protect ourselves. If I could perhaps help you smooth this whole matter over and prove our undeniable innocence then I could see fit to… lend you a dreamstone or two. Until your investigation is concluded. Whether a Guild Prince happened to mishandle it in the past is none of my affair, but it is my hope that you will see your way to seeing this most heinous shadow we are under past?"

You are considering just calling that mess of a lie out, but as he leans forward and his glasses slip onto his nose, you notice dark circles under his eyes - guy hasn't slept in days. No wonder he's been such a stumbling mess.

"Stone first," you hold up a finger and shove those glasses right back into his face, "if it's any good, maybe I can have a personal word with Waves Crash Against the Rocks about helping you out. But if I have to come back because you cheated me Teleji you're going to lie down to sleep and set off twenty of these."

You give it one last toss before you pocket it. "Boom."

…

It's not one stone, but two in your hands as you walk away from the Midnight House of the Thousand Tales. Speckled things, about the size of a fist, crystal with rainbow shadows and sparkling flecks inside and patterns that swirl inside like twining ribbons. The one, the red one, you are told may be of some use in your investigation. The other, of a purple so deep it's almost black, you are told is complimentary. In hopes of a bright future together.

You pocket them both, and after a complimentary tour (always with doors open and clear lines of sight), you leave the place richer in both information and actual riches.

But he was still shady as hell, and you still feel like he wasn't telling you everything. Partly on purpose and partly because he was tripping so hard over his own tongue. You'd made him take you right through the building and even shown you a convenient balcony entrance. Before Misery is done with her poetry interpretation, you feel like there might be time for just one more quick caper.

Are you satisfied with that?
[ ] Good enough for now. Your tour was a friendly tour, if a tense one. No need to resort to anything drastic - if you've missed anything the Guild can leverage it out of them.
[ ] Hell no. "Tour" nothing, you were casing the place to break in. Time to go find out what they're really hiding.

Guancyto · Nov 10, 2019

Break In 6
Leave It 1

The rumors about the Midnight Tales had been many and varied, but very few of them had been the sort of information you actually need. You already knew how ridiculously rich they were, how their founders had been legendary for exploring reaches that most mortal men would barely dare, and that now they mostly sit around trading in Dreamstones, hiring expensive mercenaries to keep control of that trade and congratulating themselves on how amazing they are.

The sheer breadth of wild speculations you found around marketplaces was its own point of frustration and unlike the Old Brothers you weren't able to find any rejects or former employees of theirs willing to speak about their secrets. It all came together to form an impenetrable fog of contradictory rumours that just left you with more questions than answers about them.

However, from an old mercenary (praise the gods for talkative old mercenaries!), you had gotten a description of the layout of the place. You confirmed it all during your tour so you knew he wasn't selling you a line, you'd checked before you asked where the balconies in the Midnight Tales were and knew you'd be forcing Teleji to take you right through most of the building to get to one.

From a perch on the bakery rooftop you'd smelled while getting tea served you try and piece together the whole place at once. To break in during the day is going to require an extraordinary amount of chutzpah and skill, but you have two feathers in your cap. Your rumor investigation didn't turn up dark secrets but something better: you discovered that the bigwigs of the Tales like to take an early lunch. Also, if you're caught you're reasonably certain you can just claim to having gotten lost during your tour or having forgotten some of your things.

And if that doesn't work, well, you saw the fear and fatigue in Teleji's eyes. You're the least of their problems and maybe their one hope of getting out of this unburnt - the Despot's Hound might be a ruthless murderer, but among their redeeming qualities is that they don't take bribes, so for once the Tales' wealth isn't buying their way out of trouble and you're pretty sure they're not handling that well.

The balcony has a fair amount of clearance and balanced as you are on the rooftop you should be able to make the jump as long as you can build up enough speed. That means going back at least three roofs so you can take an absolute flying leap. Steals Kisses might be Roof Racing Champion of the league (easy when it's just the two of you), but it's a hotly-contested title.

Dexterity 3 + Athletics 3 + Urban Traversal 1 = 2 successes. Made it, but made too much noise.

You tune out the noise of the city and run, the roof tiles clattering under your feet as you build up speed and launch yourself off the edge, fearless of what comes next. Your flying leap is the thing of ages, sailing through the air with the wind as your cloak you touch down still running. Unfortunately it looks like someone has set up extra chairs and stools on the balcony and you run straight into one, sending it flying end over end. You feel only a little bruised from the collision but there's no denying that was very loud and you can already hear hurried footsteps coming to find out why.

Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 = 5 successes, vs Perception 2 + Awareness 3 = 2 successes. Smooth entry!

You tip over the chair you'd sent skidding back and place a half-brick from your pockets just a little beyond it. The mercenary that comes out to look sees just what you wanted him to see, somebody with a really good throwing arm heaved a brick up there and hit the chair hard enough to knock it over, but not seriously damage it. He looks out over the balcony to see what kid is responsible and gives a bellowing damnation of the youth that would make his ancestors proud.

Meanwhile you're already slipping in behind the door he's opened before he thinks to investigate further. The second story is office spaces, you've already noted the windchimes to alert for intruders, along with the mirrors placed on corners to give the patrols a better line-of-sight. The scraps of parchment with glue you surreptitiously stuck on a couple of the doors during your tour should make a mockery of the locks.

Perception 3 + Investigation 4 = 5 successes. Consider the scene sacked.

It's amazing the sort of things people keep in their desks. Unfinished ledgers, for instance - the offices you pegged turn out to belong to people important enough to have access to the books. You do a quick analysis and quickly find out how they're able to be so stupidly rich and so stupidly idle at the same time: the ledgers don't reveal where the Dreamstones actually come from but it's clear they're incredibly expensive and the Tales aren't paying a cent for their supply. Empty dreamstones just turn up in the ledgers without any name or a location of origin tied to them, just a symbol that makes your eyes water to look at it - some kind of mandala of two concentric circles and a big circle threaded through the top half and a smaller on the bottom, and straight lines running in sort of a Z pattern seem to shift as you look at them. How did that even get committed to paper?

You shake your head, focusing on things you can actually puzzle out. Each filled dreamstone transaction or status has notes on its contents, although most of the dreamstones are filled with good dreams and rented to the very wealthy who place a premium on nightly refreshment, there are notes for several with contents that surely nobody would ever want under their pillow. Faces boiled in cast-iron pans, being slowly crucified while birds peck out your innards, the literal stuff of nightmares and sold to nobody. The strange thing is that they're not alone in going unsold and some of the others that haven't been used seem benign or even quite pleasant. The birth of a first child, the sensation of being a battleship, finally getting one over on a hated rival, all of them interesting enough that surely someone could have been tempted by them and yet they suffer the same fate as the horror stories. Is it down to intensity more than content? The ledger doesn't say, but nightmare or not these are all marked with the eye-melting symbol and not seen again.

In this particular office there are only records going back a year or two, but this particular pattern is constant and goes back as far as the records do. There's another, cleaner set of books that sets the profit margins smaller, with new expenses added and what you can only assume is the fine gentleman whose things you're rifling through embezzling the difference. All of the missing stones are attributed to shrinkage, if you were only looking at the clean books it'd look like there's a huge number of stolen dreamstones floating around Gem. Comparing the two side by side you do find a few that actually were stolen, but it's a rare occurrence and almost all are marked as Recovered. Seems like when the stones are actually stolen the Tales are pretty dogged about getting them back.

Also on the books is a large expenditure under the mercenary budget, justified as "for exceptional security circumstances," set to be paid out on the day that Cheshago died. It might be a coincidence, but you didn't see any more mercenaries than usual when you visited. Less, if anything. Maybe when you leave you can use the rapport you forged with Raicho to figure out what happened that day.

A lot of the rest is more mundane - opulent bribes and gifts paid to the rich and powerful, expenses for thrown parties that take up so much space you're amazed any real work gets done, a line for recreational expenditures that baffles you. How can anyone spend that much money just having a good time? But you read it thrice and then break out your own pocket book and hastily scrawl down your own version of the story being told in these books using their fancy pens and expensive ink rather than the bit of charcoal you usually use that leaves horrible smudges. Enough that you'll have evidence of what's going on that can be confirmed and something to dig over later. Now you just need to cover your tracks.

Intelligence 4 + Larceny 0 = 4 successes. Yeah, you got it.

These merchants are kind of terrible at securing their stuff - you put the keys to their drawers back in the locks they had been left in, move inkwells back where they belong, rub out some scuff marks that your boots have left on the floor. For a finishing touch, you take a card out of their trash bin that reads, "If I can read this then so could anybody! Keeping your things secure is vital to the Company!" and underneath lists all the things they need to do to make their office more secure. Some of them are even good ideas, but it's exactly as embarrassing a message as it sounds. You put it back on the top of the desk, figuring it'll go right back in the trash once it's seen.

As you dart into the next office, figuring you've got at least a little time to keep at it, something about the whole floor's layout seems off.

Intelligence 4 + Investigation 4 + Clue (Tour) 2 = 3 successes. Enough for a hint.

Between your tour and your information gathering you've got a solid mental picture of what the interior is supposed to look like and it is not that - it's missing at least a few feet from the back wall and possibly one whole room unless they like ridiculously thick walls here. You're distinctly running out of time because copying down ledgers is not the swiftest of undertakings, but as another guard walks by while you're pressed against a doorway you feel enough like a shadow here that you feel you might be able to push your luck.

Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 = 3 successes vs Perception 2 + Awareness 3 = 5 successes. Alert sound!

If you have to guess it's the trailing edge of your coat that betrays you. You turn a corner to hear a "STOP!" shouted behind you and you scramble to duck into the next office before they can catch up.

The footsteps are quick and heavy, sounds like they're wearing thick armour and you don't really want to get into a confrontation with someone who can spend all day carrying around all that metal. You scan the room for somewhere to hide, willing to take the first thing that's even vaguely Sharell shaped. Some wall hangings, some potted cacti that uselessly don't even come up to your knee, hiding under the desk will get you spotted almost immediately. There's a tapestry on the wall that might buy you just a few seconds, the pattern of it strangely discordant.

Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 + Clue (Mental Map) = 4 successes vs Perception 2 + Awareness 3 + Alert Status 2 = 3 successes. Barely.

It's not the pattern though, it's the shape. The tapestry curves inward, pressing through a wall that by all rights should be there. You take a gamble on this and duck behind it; it's a tight fit but there is a recess in the wall about four feet across that the tapestry had been billowed into at some point and you squeeze yourself in there good and tight. If someone had asked you this morning what you'd expected to find in a Tales' secret crawlspace you might have said some kind of grotesque murder scene filled with torture implements, but as you edge along it ever-so-carefully it's mostly filled with bugs and old trash. But, not nearly as much as there should be if this crawlspace were unused.

In your shimmying your finger snags on what feels like a keyhole. Is it a door? No, your groping explorations reveal, it's a wall of plaster with a keyhole attached. It's very dark and you don't want light right now so you can't make out if it's adorned or anything, but to your touch it's completely smooth. The armoured figure stamps into the room and after a brief once over stamps right back out but you don't risk leaving quite yet, just in case they double back.

So you turn your attention to the mysterious keyhole, well, you do have a key. It snags on your pocket as it always does, but you hold the Gold Lion Key forth and see what this "powerful symbol of authority and unlocking" with all the associated embarrassing pregnancy metaphors might do.

Essence 1 = botch.

It does absolutely nothing. Fortunately it doesn't break off in the keyhole, but it doesn't budge it either. After straining against it and whispering under your breath "unlock! Open barley! Open wheat! I command you to be unlocked!" you mostly just feel foolish. It's a good thing no one was around to see that. Listening through the walls you hear the heavy armored footsteps have died down. You could stick around here to spy, but you don't want to be here when the senior merchants of the Tales get back - they might actually use this place and then you'll be discovered in seconds.

As you slip back into the Tales' offices proper you hear the sounds of a large number of footsteps - not heavy, not hurrying, but a chaotic patter and the sounds of drunken singing. Holy shit, an early lunch is one thing but are these guys drunk at noon?

Your time has well and truly run out, and you retrace your steps and slip out the balcony you came in on, flush with secrets and even more questions. Cheshago was trying to get them to help him with the Words That Would Open the Way, and how to open the Vault. Did he just… not tell them about those? The Tales seem to have too many secrets to just be a dupe in all this, but it makes sense they were sharing with Cheshago just as little as he was with them. Else when you found that body, as sure as fire burns there wouldn't have been a key waiting for you…

Sharell: Perception 3 + Awareness 3 = 2 Successes. Not quite enough.

Your muscles are still burning from all that climbing as you get back home, the sun just finishing its own climb to the highest point in the sky and baking the city below. You just don't want to deal with it right now, seeking the shaded refuge of your sleeping quarters, the smell of old paper and polished metal having replaced the usual smell of cheroot smoke and coal dust.

The city's newest fire hazard is still doing just fine though so you hang up your coat and go to begin boiling some water for some tea. You're just filling the pot from the urn when you hear a voice right by your ear.

"Dark in here, isn't it?"

Dexterity 3 + Martial Arts 0 = Botch

With a squeak of surprise you swing the pot round with all the might you can muster, the water sloshing in it giving it some real heft as it rises to meet the intruder head on.

...

You take the boiling pot of water off the flame sullenly, not even bothering to hide your mood right now.

"If you add some roselip it'll make the swelling hurt less," your uninvited guest says, "or some Turmeric? You probably don't have Turmeric."

You turn from the pot and fold your arms at the greasy-haired lady who'd somehow managed to not only avoid your swing, but push it round to complete the arc and have it hit yourself in the head. There's going to be a bump, you can already feel it.

"I do have Turmeric, but it's expensive. You're paying for it."

Misery shakes her head and reaches up to give Leviathan a head scratch, the cat having seemingly found a perch on her shoulder. You look at the traitor cat, who hadn't even given you a warning and he licks his paw in response.

"I'm paying for it?" she says, "but you hit yourself."

"With help."

"Help you didn't even pay for, I don't work for free very often."

You're beginning to see what Misery's sense of humour actually is and you're already not enjoying it.

Manipulation 3 + Integrity 3 = 4 Successes. That's enough to get through!

Setting Misery with a stare, she looks back with a picture of amused innocence, fussing with Leviathan as if she hadn't just brained you with your own cookware. The crackle of the stove and the purr of a cat is all that fills the room as you both try to impose the mood in the room, but eventually her shoulders sag and Leviathan leaps free to the ground as his perch becomes unsustainable.

"I didn't mean to surprise you that badly, I'm sorry. I'll pay," Misery says, rapping her chest repeatedly with three fingers extended, a sign of a promise down in the South.

"Why were you even in here?"

"You just came from outside," she points out the door, "it's boiling hot and I didn't want to wait for you to get back."

You shake your head. She isn't going to get out of this that easy.

"No no, you know what I mean. How did you get in here, Misery?"

Misery: Charisma 4 + Presence 4 = 8 successes, yeah that's terrifyingly effective

"My line of work, you have to go into tombs with rocks crumbling so badly they're more of a suggestion of past finery. People might have mistaken them as just an odd part of a hill until they're suddenly home to an angry ghost wailing and scratching at the walls with how miserable their living conditions have gotten and keeping everyone awake. Rotten or not, they're places full of valuables that haven't been opened since the stone was fresh and new. Your shitty door does not really compare to that."

You search her face for the lie, but other than getting annoyed at your jokes it's actually quite hard to read Misery. She's got that priest-like ability to put on a calm face to everything, something that Niall never really quite got the hang of. You're willing to let it slide, it's not like you can really complain about people breaking into places they're not meant to be right now.

You sigh, throwing the Turmeric into the warm water and after a moment's thought adding a dash of milk and a little ginger. You're still getting used to actually having things to cook with but you know the basics of what goes with what. Ginger is perfect for making earthy things a little more palatable and if you could afford to add milk to everything you probably would.

"Did you at least bring my book back?" you say as you stir.

"Brought back and read through, yes. The Collected Poetry of the Avana Lineage. It's an interesting find, they're more a collection of morality tales than I usually like but that's old poetry for you. Always a little too clever for its own good. Do you know about the Avana Lineage?"

"They're Dragons from long ago, is about as far as I could figure out from it. Should I know more?" you say, taking a sip of tea. It isn't half bad.

"Not bad, you got very lucky with this... What are we calling this?" she says waving to the assembled mass of things you'd ended up keeping safe for the Antiquarian's successor, if one ever came.

"A big pile of books?"

"Horrible. Personal Collection? No, clearly not yours. Reference….fine, well this big pile of books," she makes the finger quotes and everything, "is quite lucky to have anything about the Avana lineage, their precious bloodline was hit hard by the Great Contagion and those left threw themselves into the maw of the fey when they tried to pick over the dead and reclaim Creation. If any survived they haven't picked up the title again, so all that's left are the stories and sad as it is, the Dragons don't go around making noise about houses that fell to ruin during the Crusades, just in case someone gets the bright idea of trying to fly the colours of past glory."

Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 = 3 Successes. Yeah no problem!

The Twin Apocalypses are ancient history at this point, but a great plague that washed across the whole of Creation and a massive invasion of the angriest kind of faeries immediately afterward is the sort of thing that sweeps whole swaths of history right into the bin - it really was the end of the world back in those days. But wait! That means...

"So they don't talk about the old families? No wait, they get rid of their books? That's so much worse!"

"Or change the names, there's more than one dragonblood house with a few tales to their name that they had no real part in. Actually seeing a reference to Avana is rare, but it's useful too. Helps put it all into perspective. See the Avana's rise and downfall is all centered around something in this book," she says waving the book of poetry at you. "Follow the poetry and there's lots of mentioning a key, but very little about the lock or the prize. That's because the Maiden in the story is both, their source of knowledge and comfort is also what they must stand guard against. An oracle safely bound, with only a single key able to make her speak."

That gold key feels like its burning a hole in your pocket right now. Metaphorically - it does actually get warm sometimes on its own but it appears stories about it won't do the trick.

"You're strangely knowledgeable about all this," you say, keeping your reaction in check.

"I deal with the dead, I have to be knowledgeable about the past."

"You use that excuse a lot"

"It's a really versatile excuse right? You should use it sometime," she says with a thin little smile that you are rapidly learning to hate.

"So do you think there really is a lock and key? Or is it just stories?"

Misery: Perception 5 + Socialize 2 = 3 Successes
Sharell: Perception 3 + Socialize 1 = 2 Successes
Misery wins this round.

"I'm happy to stay and answer questions you want to know the answers to, but I think once we get to the ones you already know it's time for me to go."

"When you hit me with a pot was the time to go." you say, refusing to recognize her call out there when she'd broken into your house and made friends with your cat behind your back.

"Ah, well I am bad at taking hints. It's only natural, after all, I deal with the dead a lo-"

She manages to get out the door quicker than you can throw the pot, but only just.

A raid complete without getting caught (mostly). That's as much as anyone can hope for, right? As always, pick two investigation targets.

[ ] DIAMOND IN YOUR KNAPSACK
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack and Cheshago had a deal, confront him about it and shake something loose.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at war with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. Pretend to be on his side, find out what you can.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at 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 and find out what you're really dealing with.

[ ] WAGON ROBBERY
PICK ONE
-[ ] Track down the driver and assistant who got paid off. Try to subtly convince them to give up their side of the story.
-[ ] Raicho knows the mercenary life, find her and ask her if she knows any of the three people who did the hit. While you're at it, ask her about the mercenaries that the Tales hired the day Cheshago died.
-[ ] Wave Crashes Against the Rocks surely knows her wagon got hit, but you know a bit more of the story than she does. Find out if it'd be of any help to her.

[ ] MIDNIGHT TALES
-[ ] You've got some of their secrets now, all in a little black book of your own. Blackmail them into telling you everything.
-[ ] You've got some of their secrets now, all in a little black book of your own. They want protection from the Guild? Hand it over to Wave Crashes Against the Rocks and let her handle them from a position of strength.
-[ ] No need to be unpleasant. Talk to Wave Crashes Against the Rocks and let her know that they're looking to make a deal, but don't give her any of their dirty secrets.
-[ ] Raid them again - even if the place will be locked up tight, it should be easier to move about at night.
--[ ] You could use some supernatural aid on this one. Pay Red's price in blood to help with a midnight raid of the Midnight Tales. Hopefully he won't ask to be paid up front.
--[ ] Mishri wanted answers from these merchants, and you could use a Soldier on your side. Maybe he can help you and you can give him some closure about his Brother.
--[ ] Apparently Misery is good at breaking into places, as infuriating as it was. Try and rope the Exorcist into this job.
--[ ] Niall doesn't want to get involved, but if somehow convinced he might be incredibly handy for this sort of thing. Try to recruit him and his rats for a caper.

[ ] THE GILDED CHEST AND THE GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
-[ ] You've got a special key that unlocks a very specific chest. Searching seemed to work better in the sun, wrap up and get all the water you can then go searching at high noon.

[ ] LOST SOUL AT THE SUN MARKET
-[ ] Go pay Steals Kisses and the rest of your friends a visit and make sure they're all right after being shook down. You need some friends you can trust right now.
-[ ] The Honest Merchant is such a charming fellow. You need another crack at his goods if you're going to survive this.

[ ] OLD BROTHERS
-[ ] 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. Tell Waves that you've found the killer and let her deal with them. (If this action is chosen no other Old Brother actions will be taken)
-[ ] A pint of blood can go a long way. Pay Dreams of Red Sands' price (Write in what you ask for).
-[ ] Great wealth, huh? The Guild owes you one, it can pay you so you can pay Red. (Write in what you ask for and go big; this will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] 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.
-[ ] The Despot has a low-key ghost cult operating right under his nose. Is that good? Is that bad? If you wanted to, could you use that to completely ruin their collective days? Do some research with Samet of Iblan and his mountain of legal precedent to find out if that's illegal or not.
-[ ] You've got evidence that the Tales are smuggling in the Dreamstones that are the heart of their livelihood. The Despot's going to want his cut, and that cut might well be a disemboweling.

[ ] 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.
-[ ] If the Avana Family were the caretakers of the key, it'd make sense they know where the vault was. Samet might know if one is buried near the city, if the records of Gem even stretch back that far.

[ ] TEN FEATHERS
PICK ONE
-[ ] You know who they are and some notion of what they're about, but you need more information in case you run into them again. Keep a low profile and ask around.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Stalk them, find out what they're up to and where they're going.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Find out where they live, break in and toss the place.
-[ ] Cut the bullshit. You know they're heavily involved in this, and even what their status is - go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
-[ ] No, seriously, cut the bullshit. Ask Waves Crashes Upon the Rocks to see that they meet with an accident. (This will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] Other
-[ ] Write in (If your write in isn't chosen first time round it'll be added as an option in future investigation rounds to an appropriate category, as long as it still makes sense to pursue.)

And one last mandatory choice, regarding our sleep options. Now with more choices!

BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL-
[ ] Sleep with Cheshago's dreamstone.
[ ] Sleep with the Tales' extra dreamstone.
[ ] No screwing around with dreamstones. Just get some sleep.
[ ] Stay up. Too much to do, too little time.

Guancyto · Nov 14, 2019

Night 4

After all the peril you've been put into lately you could do with something a little less likely to turn into a terrifying cat and mouse game. Checking in on the mom turned mercenary Raicho seems like the ideal remedy and all it takes is asking at her commander's office that you're looking to hire her to get allowed to go into the Crimson Dune compound to look for her.

With only the lower half of her face to go off it takes a bit of guessing, but there can only be so many weirdly buff mothers down from the Lap around and you eventually find her tending to a pot on a campfire, unmasked at last. The short cropped black hair suits her stern expression as she sees you walk up and get a spot near the fire. She withdraws the ladle from some kind of meat and mushroom soup and points it at you like she plans to stab it right through you, but instead just leans over a little and gives you a rap on the head. It's still a little sore from the pot that Misery had second handedly brained you with, so you hiss at the hit and she looks concerned.

"You're injured?"

"Yes. Due to … ghost fighting," you say, at the last moment realising you'd rather die than tell anyone you beat yourself up with a kettle.

"Ghost fighting? I thought you ran away from those," she says as she washes the ladle off with a bottle of water. You take a moment to feel the bump and your hand comes away a little sticky with whatever she's making. At least it smells really good.

"I probably should keep doing that, I'm not much of a fighter. Are you okay though? I, er, left you in a bit of a ghost fight situation."

Raicho smooths a hand over her unscarred face and then smiles at you.

"It's done wonders for my reputation actually. Raicho the Ghost Slayer, facing down the hungry dead with fire and steel despite only being hired to keep drunks and thieves out of the office. The Tales gave me a bonus and I should get a bit more money in the future. Everyone loves a mercenary with a good story."

"Oh! Well then I'm happy to help."

She pushes a wooden bowl into your hands and keeps going right into your chest, winding you as she nudges you back onto a stool.

"You're very bad at apologies, Sharell. But you look dead on your feet, come on and eat. I'm getting hungry just by looking at you," she says as she ladles some of the stew into the bowl. Cooked mushrooms and bits of meat float in a stew that can only be described as thick.

"Well I'd say sorry, but I'm no good at that," you say straight faced, checking her eyes to see if her sense of humour really is missing. There might be a twinkle in them? It's hard to tell, she said her kids were smart but no good at fighting, does she have some little Sharells back home to look after? That's a really unfair advantage here if so.

Raicho lets it slide and the pair of you eat together for a short while. Raicho has a nice tan but you surmise she clearly isn't native south. She mentioned the Lap was boring; the weather is probably just mild all year round.

"So why are you here?" she asks when she's done, pushing her bowl aside so she could lean on the table and look down at you. You need to have conversations with shorter women, it's getting a bit unfair how often this happens.

Charisma 2 + Presence 1 = 1 Success. Sharell is not good at the charm approach

"I wanted to see how my favourite mercenary is doing!"

Raicho actually growls and it makes your spine tingle.

"And also if you knew about some mercenaries," you add in a rush, "three of them."

You give a pretty good description of the three mercenaries that attacked the Guild Cart and their strangely powerful crossbows. Raicho mulls it over for a good minute, fingers drumming on the table.

Raicho: Int 2 + War 3 = 2 successes. Enough for some ideas

"No idea," she finally says and when your face sinks she holds up a hand.

"Wait for me to finish. No idea, but that might be quite useful. Expensive mercenaries are the stuff of legends, we all swap stories of the high fliers, after all there isn't a fighter here who doesn't want to be one of them. If there's a small group of expensive mercenaries that we don't know about that means they're from out of the city and that's even more expense."

"Is there a company that uses crossbows?" you ask, hoping for something better than that.

"A couple, but you're thinking about it wrong. Why'd they use crossbows in that raid? Because they don't cause fires. Someone expensive enough to do a three person hit on a Guild Caravan can afford some firewands in Gem and they're just so much more potent than a crossbow. Three fire wands could have levelled the whole caravan in seconds and ran for it."

"So what they stole is what mattered, not the killing?" you say, hoping to keep her rolling on this line of thinking.

"Exactly," Raicho says, "and those crossbows had to come from somewhere. Either they brought them all the way from home, which means you could maybe find that out or they bought them here in Gem and that's probably only one or two people who could even make something like that and it wouldn't be cheap."

"So really expensive mercenaries from outside Gem, bought by someone with deep pockets… like the Midnight Tales?"

She gives you an odd look.

"Why them? They had me and Stalig and the rest of the squad already. Well, okay they had me and Stalig was probably drunk somewhere and the rest still need some whipping into shape, but we should have been enough to handle anything that'd bother them, ghosts stirred up by unapologetic investigators included."

"I have reasons to believe they spent quite a lot on mercenaries," you say, glossing over the how. "Are you really expensive?"

"Getting there, but honestly the wage for a guard isn't that far above a butcher's unless something actually happens. Even then we're not worth a fortune."

"Hrm. So the Midnight Tales hired mercenaries for something extra than guarding the same day Cheshago died."

"Hey!" she says, taking her bowl back, "please don't get me into trouble with an employer, they paid well and did danger pay. I've no ill will there."

"Oh!" you say, waving your hand, "I'm just organizing the next bit of danger pay for you"

Wits 2 + Integrity 3 = 3 successes. Easy!

Her glare is a lot less scary when there's a mask in the way, it really holds her back. Still you aren't about to be scared by someone who just fed you so you just give her a big, smug smile until she relaxes. Maybe you can teach her how to have a sense of humour in time.

"You sound like you're in plenty enough of danger as is. You should learn to fight."

You laugh. "If I survive this I just might."

"Well if you aren't willing to learn you can always pay. You know where I am, I'm not so famous that I'm unaffordable."

"You... you'd actually work for me?" you say, a little surprised.

"You remind me of my kids. A little."

"Hey! I'm not a kid, I've worked pretty hard to get to where I am," you huff, if this were anyone else you'd be sure a short joke is coming up. Or just passed?

"Hard work? Okay maybe not quite like them, but you've a brain that gets you into trouble. That's a lot like them, I'd like to see it last long enough to go to some proper use."

"Aww, thanks. So, can I call you mom?"

"Of course, my beautiful young daughter."

"Was… was that your first joke? Please say that was a joke."

She just stares at you for the longest time, then eventually there's the edge of a smile.

You are so relieved that you're happy to be not so subtly kicked out so she can get back to work. Maybe teaching Raicho jokes is a bad idea, Creation isn't ready for that monster.

"You're talking about the First Age. You're asking if we have records of a Dragon-Blooded kingdom from the First Age." Samet is looking at you like you've grown another head. He's mindful enough to not have dropped his cheroot, which is good because you weren't looking forward to furiously stamping it out.

"Yes, it was probably somewhere around here. Do you have them or not? Gem's been around…" hm. You probably should have checked that at some point. "How long has Gem been around, anyway?"

"Nooo. Nooooooo. Nononono. Noooooooooo," Samet is just slowly shaking his head and repeating himself, which gives you the strong urge to ruffle his hair again, "nobody's been around that long. Almost nobody. Sijan, definitely. Chiaroscuro, sort of. The Eternal Caliphate if you believe what they say and you shouldn't, it's spurious as hell. The Great Contagion and the faerie invasion afterward were big. You won't believe how vastly, hugely, unimaginably big they were. You might think that Aegis catching you sleeping is the end of the world but it's just peanuts to the Contagion. That world's dead and gone and even the Dragons with their Scarlet Empire and their fancy unbreakable swords and self-heating baths are building on top of the ruins. If there are records, they're more like… I don't know…"

"Poetry?" you supply.

"Yeah! Old stories and collections of lost lore, things that weren't put anywhere important enough to get sacked by faeries. There are things like ancient maps of where everything that was, but even outright ruins are insanely valuable if there's anything left behind. The kind of find that will set up a scavenger lord for life or make an empire, depending on what you can find. I heard about a hundred years ago there was a warlord up north that found an army of metal men that obeyed him and he made a huge ruckus for like thirty years. Anyway it's nothing I'd have access to."

"But you would know a thing or two about ruins," you gesture to the massive piles of papers the two of you are surrounded by, "they've come up a lot in legal precedents I'm guessing. I'm looking for something no one has found," or at least something that no one has admitted to finding, "so it might help to know what has been found?"

"You wanted a job that didn't have any threats, didn't you?" Samet boggles at you, "ruin-delving is the exact opposite of that, Sharell. There's traps and dangers and things trying to kill you without even meaning to, and that's not even getting into the things that do mean to kill you."

"Guess I'll have to arrange some kind of delayed-release delivery of cheroots, in case I don't make it back," now you really do ruffle his hair. He shies away from it but you persist until his man-bun is utterly destroyed, a victory for peace and justice everywhere.

Samet's got this look in his eye like he wants to say something further, but he bites his tongue when he sees the determination in your eyes.

"All right, I'll see what I can do."

Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 = 2 successes. Narrowed it down, but far from decisively.

It is an incredibly frustrating adventure - locations are described by landmarks or not at all, sometimes only features are given, and given the tendency of scavengers to protect their finds some of the information is surely lies. But you do make progress. Lots of ruins have been thoroughly plundered, and you now have a number of ideas where in the vast desert surrounding Gem not to look but, well, what did Samet say? It's just peanuts to empty space.

Notably not nearly as plundered (and in greater supply) are tombs buried in the sands. It's not your focus right now, but you keep it in your back pocket nonetheless.

Covering Ground: Stamina 2 + Ride 0 + 2 clue (research)= straight failure, spent a willpower in anticipation of failing so 1 success.
Find Things: Perception 3 + Awareness 3 = 2 successes

There is TOO. MUCH. DESERT.

City girl that you are you think of Gem as pretty big, but the desert doesn't seem to ever end, you ride further into it and Gem gets a little smaller behind you but if not for that you could swear you're going round in circles and it's only your dogged determination that sees you make any progress at all. You're bundled up so the sheer cold of the desert at night won't freeze you but you're already saddle-sore and you've only been at it for an hour or so. The water transpiring off the carpet of newly-awakened desert flowers makes a cold fog, it's hard to see and the humidity chills you to the bone. Still, it's better than a search like this would be during the daytime - in the day you'd cook in minutes and wouldn't even have the sweat of exertion to keep you warm.

2d10=1,3. Not a botch, but a 13!

You do espy something on the ground, amid the twining flowers. It looks like a rock but as you ride by a tiny bit of motion in your peripheral vision sees you look back. It's flapping slightly in the wind your passage has kicked up - is it a person hunched over and covered in a cloak? You bring your horse around and hop down to take a look. Not a person, not unless they're really small. Keeping ahold of the reins in case you need to make a quick exit, you tentatively prod it with your foot.

A sack. Full of… huh. Little wooden horses and spinning tops carved from obsidian. Carved stone cats with strings attached. This must have been looted from a caravan that passed by here. Probably discarded when the thieves found it only had children's toys inside. Wood's still stupidly expensive so they must not have been very smart raiders, but this is recent enough that the rain and explosion of flowers hadn't destroyed it.

It's not a lot, but you've gotten at least some ground covered and fatigue is quickly starting to steal at your limbs. You know that some horselords can sleep while in the saddle and it's a trick you'd be eternally grateful for, because the bumping and jostling of your ride (and the idea of falling asleep for too many hours and getting lost) keeps you wide awake.

Even more hours later, you have enough presence of mind to grab Cheshago's dreamstone and keep it with you as you fall into your bed still fully-clothed. If you were less tired the soreness and aches and the pain in your backside would keep you up, but you are out cold the second your head hits the pillow.

You're turning a coin over and over in your fingers. The gold catches the light of the sun, and it glimmers on the face on the coin. Your face. You see a thick, dark liquid running over the gold, like it's bleeding black and the smell of it is almost enough to make you gag. Then you decide that such mundane concerns are beneath you and you decide it so strongly that the unpleasantness instantly vanishes.

And still you turn it over and over in your fingers, twirling it between them like baton. The black ichor stains your hands, but it is no longer of any concern to you. Yes, this coin has definitely been used for something illicit. You look at the coin and look into it and all at once a hundred faces and a hundred transactions flash in succession, until you see a man picking it out of another's pocket. No, too petty - that one you'll deal with later. There is more crime on that coin than just a little theft. A hundred more faces, a hundred more times it's handed over until it's given to a man you recognize as one of your staff. No one important, but one of yours nonetheless. It's traded for secrets. Your secrets. You follow the coin again, until it's given to a lieutenant standing in the presence of a man who shines like the sun.

And like the coin, he too wears your face.

Your blood boils and you see red and you crush the coin into dust in your fist. Well, first things first, you need to mete out justice for turning against you so.

You visit the man who is no one important, and he dutifully grovels at your feet. You shut the door behind you, and you decide the room should be pitch dark and the room dutifully agrees. For the first time in a long time, you smile.

Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.

You awaken, and the Golden Key in your pocket is burning hot as a brand against your skin.

First, a mandatory choice!

A sack of expensive children's toys. You can't think of any use for them yourself, but maybe someone else can.

[ ] You never actually asked how old Raicho's kids are, but even if they're not the right age she might know someone who is. And she did offer to train you, this makes a good payment. (+Archery, +Specialty: Flame Weapons)
[ ] Samet could stand to blow off some steam. Get together with him and hide them so well that Head Scholar Aegis will be furiously hunting down the source of such frivolity for years. (+Larceny, +Specialty: Concealing Small Objects)
[ ] Mishri's people have a legion of kids, if they have toys as nice as these they've built them themselves. And maybe he can give you some advice for managing outside the city. (+Survival, +Specialty: Desert)
[ ] Now is not the time to just be giving things away. Your friends at the Sun Market can probably find a good price for them. (+???, replenish your Resources)
[ ] Keep them, you might find someone that can make better use of them later.

A new day dawns! Has everyone made it to the morning? As always, pick two investigation targets:

[ ] DIAMOND IN YOUR KNAPSACK
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack and Cheshago had a deal, confront him about it and shake something loose.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at war with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. Pretend to be on his side, find out what you can.
-[ ] Diamond in your Knapsack is at 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 and find out what you're really dealing with.

[ ] WAGON ROBBERY
PICK ONE
-[ ] Track down the driver and assistant who got paid off. Try to subtly convince them to give up their side of the story.
-[ ] Wave Crashes Against the Rocks surely knows her wagon got hit, but you think you now know quite a bit more of the story than she does. Find out if it'd be of any help to her.

[ ] MIDNIGHT TALES
-[ ] You've got some of their secrets now, all in a little black book of your own. Blackmail them into telling you everything.
-[ ] You've got some of their secrets now, all in a little black book of your own. They want protection from the Guild? Hand it over to Wave Crashes Against the Rocks and let her handle them from a position of strength.
-[ ] No need to be unpleasant. Talk to Wave Crashes Against the Rocks and let her know that they're looking to make a deal, but don't give her any of their dirty secrets.
-[ ] Raid them again - they did spot the edge of you, so maybe they've heightened security. Might want to bring help.
~~--[ ] You could use some supernatural aid on this one. Pay Red's price in blood to help with a midnight raid of the Midnight Tales. Hopefully he won't ask to be paid up front.~~ (Red is unavailable for heists during the day.)
~~--[ ] You really need a great big wall of meat with a flame gun and a heap of inside knowledge. Raicho can be that.~~ (Raicho is unlikely to be willing to act against her employer at this time.)
--[ ] Mishri wanted answers from these merchants, and you could use a Soldier on your side. Maybe he can help you and you can give him some closure about his Brother.
--[ ] Apparently Misery is good at breaking into places, as infuriating as it was. Try and rope the Exorcist into this job.
--[ ] Niall doesn't want to get involved, but if somehow convinced he might be incredibly handy for this sort of thing. Try to recruit him and his rats for a caper.

[ ] THE GILDED CHEST AND THE GOLD LION KEY
PICK ONE
-[ ] You've got a special key that unlocks a very specific chest. Searching seemed to work better in the sun and it's still hot against your skin, wrap up and get all the water you can then go searching at high noon.
-[ ] You're not a poet, these books must still hold some secrets. Samet of Iblan is well read, he might be able to make more sense of it than you can.

[ ] LOST SOUL AT THE SUN MARKET
-[ ] Go pay Steals Kisses and the rest of your friends a visit and make sure they're all right after being shook down. You need some friends you can trust right now.
-[ ] Coins! Old coins. Gold coins. Old gold coins. You wiggle your fingers and you can still faintly feel the coin between them giving up a thousand thousand secrets. Find a numismatist and see if you can find any old coins that stir any memories or provide any hints.
-[ ] Expensive mercenaries from out of town? Gem gets visitors (and rich visitors) more or less constantly, but these particular ones might have unusual tastes. Ask around.
-[ ] The Honest Merchant is such a charming fellow. You need another crack at his goods if you're going to survive this.

[ ] OLD BROTHERS
-[ ] 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. Tell Waves that you've found the killer and let her deal with them. (If this action is chosen no other Old Brother actions will be taken)
-[ ] A pint of blood can go a long way. Pay Dreams of Red Sands' price (Write in what you ask for).
-[ ] Great wealth, huh? The Guild owes you one, it can pay you so you can pay Red. (Write in what you ask for and go big; this will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] 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.
-[ ] The Despot has a low-key ghost cult operating right under his nose. Is that good? Is that bad? Is that something you can use? Do some research with Samet of Iblan and his mountain of legal precedent to find out if that's illegal or not.
-[ ] You've got evidence that the Tales are smuggling in the Dreamstones that are the heart of their livelihood. The Despot's going to want his cut, and that cut might well be a disemboweling.

[ ] THE VAULT
-[ ] It occurs to you that rather than making educated guesses you might want to actually find out where the Old Brothers found the chest. It's way too hot to go roaming in the desert alone; look into hiring one of them as a guide, and bring lots of water.
-[ ] Roaming the desert and collating records of ruins narrowed it down but not a lot. There are plenty of tombs buried in the sands that no one will touch, and now you know someone that's legally allowed to poke about them. Bring Misery and go looking for some super-old Dragon Ghosts to see if they know where the Vault is.

[ ] TEN FEATHERS
PICK ONE
-[ ] You know who they are and some notion of what they're about, but you need more information in case you run into them again. Keep a low profile and ask around.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Stalk them, find out what they're up to and where they're going.
-[ ] They have information you need about this case. Find out where they live, break in and toss the place.
-[ ] Cut the bullshit. You know they're heavily involved in this, and even what their status is - go find them and ask them directly what they're playing at.
-[ ] No, seriously, cut the bullshit. Ask Waves Crashes Upon the Rocks to see that they meet with an accident. (This will use your Guild Favor)

[ ] Other
-[ ] Write in (If your write in isn't chosen first time round it'll be added as an option in future investigation rounds to an appropriate category, as long as it still makes sense to pursue.)

MostlyPremier · Nov 14, 2019

Sharell Zenteno and the case so far!
This is you! You used to investigate missing person cases for money and did a very good job. Due to owing the Guild a favour you agreed to investigate a murder of one of their own. It has been a real thing.

The victim, Guild Prince Cheshago, was killed in the halls of the Midnight Tales, merchants who trade in special stones that hold dreams.

You haven't worked out the killer yet, but there's a lot of evidence pointing to Diamond in your Knapsack, a member of the Guild who seems to be an internal war with your boss. People being killed over it and all.
You then renegotiated with Wave Crashes Against the Rocks (Your boss) and now have a contract to solve the murder AND take care of Diamond in your Knapsack's attempted takeover.

The whole fight seems to be over a mysterious golden chest that you haven't been able to locate yet, but is apparently a big deal. You do have the key to the chest, so at least you know they're not opening it yet. It is used somehow to open a Vault (Which you haven't found) and gives The Words that Open the Way (Which you don't know, unless you want to start guessing)

Also after the chest are the Old Brothers. A group of retired (and often wronged) soldiers who have formed a ghost cult for dead veterans in an attempt to secure them a better place in the afterlife by helping their dead raise a kingdom in the Underworld. Cheshago stole the chest off them when they dug it up and they've wanted to kill him ever since in revenge. That he's already dead makes this difficult.

After some investigation you found The Midnight Tales themselves are apparently being led by a demon named Makarios, who lives in and trades dreams.If you help the Midnight Tales survive this and find a new love for trading then he's promised you some pretty incredible things, the ability to walk through dreams and Sorcery, which is magic that can alter reality itself and a Big Deal. They have a magical machine that can catch dreams and also doesn't work because it's been poisoned by the infected dreams of a man you're calling the Dreamer for now. He seems a little bit out of it and you're not really sure why this is happening, but you're infected with his dreams too now.The Midnight Tales assure you this isn't a problem, probably, which is not confidence inspiring.

Also around is Ten Feathers, the right hand Hound of the ruling man of the city, the Despot. After a lot of scary encounters in which they nearly murdered or set you on fire, you somehow complimented them so well you're now Partners and also possibly dating. There is some uncertainty on that last bit. Pretty much everyone in the city is terrified of them, for good reason.

You've some friends!
Niall is the priest of Templeton a God of Rats who eats Corpses (But in a nice way and Templeton doesn't personally eat them, that's what the rats are for) and Misery a mysterious Exorcist who is up to something, but is usually quite helpful.
Steals Kisses, your best friend and shameless thief. She's great, you have no worries about her except that she is too eager about crimes.
Dreams of Red Sands, a mercenary ghost who works for the Old Brothers in return for Blood, the favoured currency of Ghosts. "Friend" is putting it very strongly, you know him and he knows you.
The Handsome Merchant. He's lovely. Don't worry about it.
Samet, a nice scholary boy you sneak smokes in return for having them look you up the weird laws of Gem or other bits of useful legal paperwork. His boss thinks you're dating now which is endlessly awkward.
Raicho. A rather capable mercenary and possibly also capable mom who is just trying to get by and send her kids to college.
Leviathan. A cat you picked up after their owner died in the course of the investigation. They are just a pretty cute cat .... or are they? (Yes, they are)

Now the clues!
The Murder.
Cheshago was killed at night by someone using a knife. It was a particularly brutal and cruel murder,but no one seems to have witnessed it occurring.
Cheshago's hungry ghost rose early while you were investigating his corpse, this may be due to his upper soul (The thinking part of the soul) being stolen rather than left to disperse naturally.
Cheshago had gold under his fingernails from what is probably a Golden Chest, but you haven't been able to find it yet.
Cheshago also had the Gold Lion Key and a notebook with details of an inter-faction Guild squabble that he appeared to be playing both sides of and a potential attempt to seize power in gem.
Cheshago's soul was likely put into a Yasal Crystal, a special crystal that can be used to trap ghosts.
You revealed that on the night of the murder, the Midnight Tales had hired some expensive mercenaries. They were going to use them to kill Cheshago due to how his dream crystals were poisoning their fancy dream catching machine and just on general principle that what he was messing with seems really dangerous. They didn't have time to, so that's money wasted.
Due to how the investigation went, Ten Feathers saw the murder scene after Raicho had set it on fire to kill Cheshago's hungry ghost.
Re-investigating the scene, there is no secret compartments, way in or out other than the door (Which was guarded) and nowhere to hide things. So basically the murder is seemingly impossible without some kind of special power or really clever trick.

The Other Murder.
The Antiquarian was killed at night but the body was too burnt to really tell how beyond some kind of bladed weapon. They were hung up after death like an effigy.
You saved all his books, bar a few pages in a book Ten Feathers took.
You worked with Samet to get the Antiquarian the full burial experience he'd probably been looking forward to.
Ten Feathers set this murder scene on fire before you could. Not that you were planning to. They say they didn't do this to spite you, but they would.
You now have his cat Leviathan, which so far has mainly enjoyed lazing around your house and making you feed it.

The Guild Squabble.
Wave Crashes Against the Rocks is your current boss and legitimate leader of the Guild in Gem. She's aware of the attempts to splinter and she says she hired you to investigate this murder because she doesn't trust the regular guild investigators. Dream of Red Sand's says it's likely she hired you because you're inexperienced and she doesn't actually want this murder solved.
Someone has sent some expensive mercenaries out to kill and steal from a guild caravan. They were also able to bribe the usual drivers into helping.
Raicho told you the mercenaries are probably from outside Gem (Expensive) and incredibly talented (Very expensive). Whoever did it really is spending coin and doesn't want to be found out.
Diamond in your Knapsack is the other side of the dispute but you haven't found out much about them yet.
Someone hired Imperial Mercenaries to steal Yasal Crystals from Wave Crashes Against the Rocks. As Deserters from the most powerful fighting force in Creation (That you know of anyway) they're a pretty big deal.
Or were anyway, you and Ten Feathers captured them all. They haven't been interrogated by you since Ten whisked them away pretty quick.
Wave was very cagey about where those Yasal Crystals came from, somewhere Deep South? But there's nothing but elementals and fair folk down there.

The Key, The Chest, The Vault and the Words That Will Open the Way.
You have a strange golden key that you think opens a strange golden chest. They're special in that the only way to get what is in the chest is to open the key.
The Golden Lion Key seems to have some connection to the chest and you feel like it can lead you to it. It works best in sunlight (The more the better) and it's possibly just a strange feeling and doesn't actually work that way.
What's in the chest you don't know. But you've got strange poetry giving ideas.
You asked the Exorcist Misery and Niall to help decipher it, Misery took a lot more interest and said the Maiden they pray to in the story is both a treasure and something that needs to be guarded against. Misery deals with the dead, so she has to be knowledgeable about the past.
You're pretty sure Misery is some kind of liar, but she's better than it at you so you haven't been able to call her on it yet.
Misery also told you about the Avana Dynasty. An old house of Dragonbloods who were tasked with safeguarding chests like these, though she didn't say from what. The house was wiped out by casualties to the Great Contagion (A massive plague that killed a good portion of Creation's population) and the Balorian Crusade (An invasion of Fair Folk that followed after the Great Contagion, which was beaten back after heavy losses and the ascent of the Scarlet Empress. She's probably not involved in this, thank goodness)
Somehow this is all related to a Vault (Which you can't find) and Words That Will Open the Way (Which you haven't seen anything further about)
Wave Crashes Against the Rocks is a Factor not a Guild Prince. Factor's are a bigger deal. You got that wrong a lot and she let it slide.
You've been told by a ghost that Misery summoned that the chest is in the cellar of Diamond's Ruin.

The Old Brothers
Mishri runs a funerary cult for soldiers who were abandoned by their masters or can't make it in retirement. That means they're feeding the ghosts of their dead blood, weapons and prayer.
Mishri himself did not actually get screwed over and retired with money, which he used to make the Old Brothers to support those who didn't.
They spend a lot on lavish funerals for the dead and donate their own blood, which somehow helps Old Brothers who have moved on into the afterlife. They plan to build a kingdom of the dead, since a kingdom of the living is far too difficult.
Dreams of Red Sands is involved with them, a ghost mercenary who finds shelter under their banner but isn't actually an Old Brother. He keeps calling you "Cat-catcher" a nickname that's definitely not meant to be nice.
The Old Brothers had beef with Cheshago because he killed one of theirs to steal the Golden Chest, something a lot of people in the city knew rumours about.
They insist they haven't killed anyone, but they'd have liked to.

The Midnight Tales
Sell Dreamstones (Which as they sound, hold dreams in them) and are incredibly rich from it.
After investigating them you found out their Dreamstone business is very odd, with them sending off dreamstones marked with a nasty to look at symbol to a special room called the Orrery, which is used to capture the dreams of Gems for them to look over and gain a lot of advantages.
They've been hiding these dreamstones as stolen in the official books, so it's clearly something they don't want people to know about.
It's all to do with their patron Makarios, a demon who lives in a giant dream market and likes to trade the dreams of mortals. You've come to a bargain with him that if you save the Midnight Tales and also improve them somehow, he'll give you the gifts of dream-walking for the first and Sorcery for the Second.
Cheshago was bringing them dream crystals to look over with infected dreams from a man who lived a long time ago. This posioned the Orrery making it unusable and scared the Midnight Tales really badly.
They hired expensive mercenaries the night Cheshago died to try kill him because of the Infected Dreamstones and the fear of what it all meant. He died before they could use them.
They asked Wave Crashes Against the Rocks for help avoiding fallout from the Despot over the murder. She was not interested in it.
You're trying desperately to save them, but running into the wall that outside of trading they're a bit hopeless.

The Dreamer
Cheshago was taking Dreamstones to the Midnight Tales with dreams from a man that seemed to live a long, long time ago. You don't know why yet, beyond it was some kind of trick.
You used Cheshago's dreamstone and had a strange dream about a man who could see people who used his money. It made the golden key burn hot against your skin.
You had a second dream with an infected dream crystal the Midnight Tales had about them making a golden army and also cutting everyone out of their life, even a lovely woman who seemed to be a lover or their last good friend? She couldn't talk him out of it.
You had a third dream about him still in the army forge going hopelessly paranoid while he constructed some kind of golden device.
He's terrified of the Adversary, who he is convinced is out to kill not just him but undo everything he's ever worked for.
He's infected you with his dreams. What this actually means so far hasn't become clear.

The Handsome Merchant
Someone you met in the Sun Market who kind of forced you into buying something off him for a memory. It's a bit blurry.
They seemed amused by what you were up to and wanted to tip the scales a little.
They traded you a playing card that lets you speed yourself up, or act as a barrier.
He seems nice! (He's probably not)

The Despot's Hound.
Ten Feather's is investigating all this the same time as you are.
They scared your friends, nearly shot your new cat and is a bit terrifying.
They were at the murder scene of the Antiquarian and nearly burned his place down. You know she got a few pages of a book about the Golden Chest, don't know what they said.
You don't yet know how far along they are in thier investigation, or what thier actual aim is.
They work for the Despot, the man who is the supreme authority in this city and can make or overturn laws with a word. That he hires people like Ten Feather's is probably a big warning flag about how justice in this city goes.
They aren't thrilled you're trying to investigate the same crime they are.
You are possibly dating? You're partners and that's like 50% dating at least.
Apparently they really like stories.

Guancyto · Nov 15, 2019

Toys:
Sell at Market 3
Scribe Pranks 2
Old Auntie 1

Investigation Target:
Sun Market 6 (Do Everything 4, Just Coins 2)
Wagon Robbery 3 (Waves 2, Driver 1)
Vault 2 (Misery and Brothers 2)
Lion Key 1

Day 5

Wherever in Gem the sun scours the ground the hardest, there the Sun Market will set up its stalls. The superbloom has added a strange kink to this, the flowers are seeding their future generations while they can, filling the air with a haze of pollen that's leaving a few people looking very bleary eyed and miserable.

Stamina 2 + Resistance 1 = 1 Success. Sharell is fine!

You don't seem to suffer a single bit though and quite happily weave your way through the groups getting their less than honest business done, pockets sloshing with all the flasks you've filled in preparation for another long day out in the baking heat. A sack full of the toys you've found in the desert rattles and clinks on your back as you look about for a familiar stall only to find yourself heckled from above.

"Sharell! Sharell! Look what I got!" comes the excited cry from Steals Kisses sitting atop the supports of her stall. She is waving about a wickedly sharp looking knife like she's trying to cut the sun out of the sky and it glints nearly as bright as the key you keep stowed away in your pocket. Steals Kisses is only a few inches taller than you but she makes up for it by being about ten times noisier.

"Best hard iron knives I've ever held and they're for chopping up fruit. How crazy is that?"

You were all set to be mad at Steals for not giving you a heads up about Ten Feathers, but it's going to be hard to keep that going. You give a look around for anyone loitering and since it seems safe, you dump the bag in her stall. You clamber up the frame of her shop so you can swing your legs over the awning pole and sit with her up high, legs resting on cloth already warm to the touch. It's far too hot for this, but you aren't going to let her just lord it over you up here.

"Not that crazy," you say as you wiggle in your seat and try to get comfy, "you know out East they have killer fruit? Bigger than a man, with vines that can rip your arms off. They say a chef isn't a true chef until they've killed one and made it into an arrangement."

"Really?" Steals says, eyes wide, lowering her knife to look at it for signs of combat.

"No, I made that up," you say, poking her in the side, "you didn't tell me about Ten Feathers, you jerk."

Guilt washes right over her face, her black braids bobbing guiltily behind her as she rubs the back of her neck with one hand.

"She's scary, said if I breathed a word about it she'd go after my friends and make sure they know it was my fault she was there. I didn't want to get you in trouble!"

You snort and she waves her hands placatingly.

"I mean not this kind of trouble! Regular trouble is fine, you're always free to give up investigating and come join me in that. An open offer for my best friend and roof running rival."

"Relieving people of their fine cookware?"

"Yeah! It's so heavy, I actually struggled to get it all home."

This is no small thing. Steals Kisses might be only a little taller than you but she filled out a lot better after she started getting regular meals. Fate had some fun putting all that muscle onto a woman who couldn't ever turn down a challenge. One of the first things new barflies in Gem learned was to not arm wrestle short ladies with big smiles unless they were done with that hand for the day.

"It's real good," she goes on, "I've sold so many pots today, everyone needs a nice iron pot. The knives are tricky though, Mercenaries aren't interested and fancy cooks got enough money they don't need to come here."

Int 4 + Bureaucracy 3 = 5 successes. Destroyed it.

"Well not that you deserve my help for your betrayal, but if you want to sell fancy cook knives then you need to go through the spice merchants. Rich cooks become even richer by penny pinching on their ingredients, I'll bet anyone selling Frost Leaf or Brume Mushrooms can sell some fine knives no problem. Just give them a bit of a mates rates deal and sell them a whole bunch."

"Ahh, I don't know any of them but any excuse to say hello to some new people," she says, flicking the cooking knife up into a spin and catching it again, then brandishing it at you. "If it works I'll give you a little cut. Hah! This is why we should be a team again, you got a much better head for the money."

"The city couldn't handle us, I need to keep us apart to make it a challenge," you deflect. Maybe one day she'll wind you back into her schemes but not today. "Speaking of money though, come on down and see what I got."

Gachapon machine: 2d10=9,6. 96, yikes.

Steals is full of excited energy as you pour the bag out onto her table, bobbing side to side on the balls of her feet as you arrange the toys out for her. Unlike those desert bandits she doesn't miss a potential bit of coin so easily.

"That real wood? How'd you get a hold of that?" she says as she takes up one of the carved soldiers and brushes her fingers over the grain.

"Someone left it just lying around in the desert."

"Really? Like, just sitting out there? You're not having me on again?"

"Yep."

She moves to the Onyx next, giving it a knock with a finger and then looking at you more seriously.

"I don't believe you, but fine you keep your secrets. This is going to be… quite a lot? The wooden toys I'll have to sell as is, but I know a few good homes for them. Usually I give toys away for free, but if they're made of wood there'd be riots. The Onyx I can get melted down and make some seals, people love personal seals and I know a girl who'll just grind out a whole bunch if I throw some gold and nice words at her. So yeah, a good price. I mean of course you're selling as my best friend and closest confidant."

"We have never confidanted," you cut in.

"Yes we did, I got you drunk after you solved your first case. We confidanted real hard."

"That's not… Steals what do you think confidant means? No, actually, no, nevermind," you say, shaking your head, "how much can you afford? It's a lucky find anyway."

Steals reaches over to punch you arm. It's a friendly gesture but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, she really doesn't know her own strength.

"I don't take advantage of friends. You'll get a proper payment. I can maybe do you a tidy sum now and owe you one?"

"So if I want someone relieved of cookware?"

"I don't just do cookware and you know it. Actually a triple payment! Money, one good natured robbery and I'm going to get you some proper introductions around here."

"People know who I am!" you huff, "I'm practically infamous."

"Yeah and who do you think helped with that?" Steals grins "I've talked people's ears off about how you're so good at finding people that they could bury someone in the desert and meet you on the way back carrying a shovel."

"So why do I need introductions?" you say, "if you've done such a good job."

"Because you need to learn how to do it too and it's a valuable skill that I'm using to knock a third off the price."

"Hey!"

"You can't put a price on people skills. But I can and it's about a third of what I owe you, suck it up and come learn how to be lovely to strangers with me"

What follows shortly after is a lot of very awkward introductions to a variety of criminals but by the end of it some of Steals' charm seems to have rubbed off on you. Mainly because you're stealing all her warm-up anecdotes, but what are friends for if not that?

Triple threat! That was a "roll twice" gacha result, with an 18 and a 46 for results.

Restore the use of your Resource Dot, as the guaranteed reward.
2 dots of Socialize. (As was sneakily done with the Occult skillup, we decided an increase to a skill rated 0 or 1 is a double dot to represent how it costs less XP to raise skills that are already low. (And because having one dot is a bit rubbish.))
Steals Kisses will do one future crime for you. She specializes in cat burglary. You won't be able to go along with her, but to offset that it won't take up an action when used.

"Gold as a currency? Hah! That'll be the day," the numismatist laughs and his belly shakes. "Stick with good old silver coins, missy, they'll never steer you wrong!"

He does seem to have quite a collection of currency, all safely ensconced in little spring-loaded boxes. Cowries from the Great Western Ocean, so distant it might as well be a fable. Tally sticks as records of unique debts. Braided cords and bright beads and a gigantic stone wheel that you are assured is used as currency on a faraway island - which is being traded to this day because everyone on said island is quite sure it still exists.

"And here I thought you were a scholar," you sniff and give your most practiced impression of Samet. If you had glasses you'd push them up on your nose, but you settle for passing a critical eye over his collection like it's made of fungus instead of exotic money, "possessed of a keen eye for all the rarefied antiques scattered across the sands of time. If you're a glorified moneychanger you're wasting my time."

Manipulation 3 + Investigation 4 = 4 successes, dinged an Intimacy.

He bristles and for a second he looks ready to start a fight, but when you give him a searching look with a twinkle in your eye, he cracks a rueful smile.

"You know how to wound a man's pride, missy. I can show you a bit. Get it? A bit? Gya ha ha ha!"

True to his word there is a Bit - a one-eighth piece of a Jade Obol, the currency of Dragons and their annoyingly smug technological paradise. Ooh, look at me, I'm so rich I even make my coins out of the magical blood of the earth! It's probably worth more than the rest of them put together, so you really must have wounded his pride quite deeply if he's willing to show it to you. Or more likely it's just a very good fake, everyone who's ever told a good campfire horror story knows Dragons will come for people with a pocket full of Jade and unlike most of the campfire stories, that one feels a lot more true.

There are also gold coins. Gold doesn't tarnish like silver but it's not a particularly tough material and coins tend to live hard lives, so some of them look like unholy masses of scars from age. Still there are enough of them to try and get a feeling for them. The feeling of turning one over in your hand feels right somehow, but noticeably absent is the ability to suddenly become aware of everyone who has ever used it to pay for something. Maybe if you try another one?

Essence 1 = failure.

Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 = 4 successes.

No, no, these coins are all wrong! They don't have your face on them, even though now that you're firmly awake you can't clearly articulate what exactly that is. The cheeks are too round, the hair not neat enough. It's a bit of a slog to get through all the ones that are wrong and the numismatist is halfway to shooing you out with a broom by the time you're finished. Still, you do find something. You can peg the Dreamer (who you're tentatively calling the Dreamer, that sure as hell wasn't Cheshago's dream) as probably male, with high cheekbones and hawkish features and razor-straight hair.

It's not really what you came here for, but if you ever need to pick them out of a lineup or recognize them in a painting, now you have a pretty good idea on how?

Foreign mercenaries, recently in town, very well-paid, possibly buying expensive things. You already know what they look like. How hard can it be to find out about them?

Intelligence 4 + Investigation 4 = 5 successes. Hard, but not hard enough.

In a city like Gem where the newly-rich are raised every day (and just as many fall back from grace into the gutters) a group of foreigners with new money isn't remotely news, but as you interrogate shopkeepers these are different. Gem's merchants don't scare easy, but it's a trial to get any information out of them at all. These people are purchasing creature comforts, but it's all coffee and bacon and red clay teapots and silk underwear and…

Intelligence 4 + Lore 3 = 4 successes. A little obscure, but within reach.

It's a shaky connection, but together with their appearance, their efficiency and their choice of weapon? Those are Imperial creature comforts. Raicho's assessment of crossbows being the ambush weapon of choice for an elite crew trying to steal goods wasn't wrong, but there's another factor at play here. The crossbows are not a tool of opportunity, but the familiar weapons of a Legion. Your blood runs cold as you realize that these aren't just any high-flying mercenaries with their sights trained on the Guild.

Are they deserters from the Scarlet Empire - the iron fist of the Dragons, turned mercenary? Aren't they supposed to be the most feared mortal soldiers in the world?

You're sure glad that's not your problem. Yet.

You have no trouble getting into Wave Crashes Against the Rocks' office this time and even avoid the usual search. It seems you've got some special status now because you pass by a ruffled looking merchant being led out loudly complaining to the guards that he's important while they do their job and not give a shit.

Perception 3 + Awareness 3 = 3 successes. You get all the signs.

Slipping into Wave's office she's just putting away a crystal decanter that's rather low on wine into her drinks cabinet. She doesn't look drunk but she does look awfully tired, if she's having to resort to wine to dull her opponents wits she can't be having a very good time of it. Along with how easily you got let in there's only one conclusion to come to. She's really relying on you providing a save right now.

No drinks for you, she slips you right into a debrief of what you've been doing and you go over the cart robbery and the mercenaries hired. Sinking back into her chair she needles you with a few questions on details, only winding it up once she's properly wrung you dry of everything about it. Sinking back into her chair, you see her relax her shoulders just a little and brush back a few licks of straw blonde hair that's seen better days.

"Diamond in your Knapsack, it has to be," she says, "he's been blazing through money lately, has the contacts to hire out of the city and no one else would know our drivers well enough to bribe them. Ugh, those have to be hunted down too now, more damn traitors."

"It could be the Midnight Tales," you say, "they're putting money out a lot of money for mercenaries too and they might know things from Cheshago. Not to mention Dreamstones are traded with everyone, near and far, they'd have the contacts."

"Possibly," she says after a moment's thought, "you've been there, compared to Diamond they're," she stops herself with a sour look before she can say soft. "Marshmallows. But I can't rule out that I might have been sorely underestimating them. It's the sort of thing they'd be interested in too."

"Oh?" you ask innocently, "and what would that be?"

Charisma 2 + Presence 1 = 1 success. Passes because Wave has an abusable intimacy and still trusts you

"We're making it a habit of me asking you to not reveal sensitive information. Do I need to redo your contract again?"

You shake your head. It was already covered and you'll save pushing your luck for later. You're already one favour up.

"I want to make it clear we are legally trading gemstones, this all went through the Despot first and he got his cut. It's just these are a little more special than most. You know what a Yasal Crystal is?"

Int 4 + Occult 3 = 3 successes. You sure do.

"Speaking stones?" you say, "I read about them recently, old voices trapped in rocks that you can bargain with for knowledge?"

"Close," Wave says, nodding approvingly at you knowing something so obscure, "those are filled Yasal Crystals, we have a source further South which are trading them clean, ready to accept a soul."

Wits 2 + Integrity 3 = 4 Successes. Like ice

"A soul? So they're soul stealing stones?" you say, tamping down your anger that Wave knew about these and never mentioned them. "From down South, so that'd mean you're trading with the..."

Wave clicks her fingers, cutting you off. "Who we traded them with isn't important for this."

Touchy.

"So Cheshago's missing soul, that's because of a Guild Crystal?" you say, deciding it's not worth lighting that little bit of firedust Wave had hidden from you.

"They weren't stolen until the day before yesterday," Wave says, "so they weren't in play. If Cheshago got his soul stolen, it wasn't with one of our Yasal Crystals."

"Diamond could have taken one earlier."

"And I'd have known. They're fantastically expensive and rare. You don't lose one down the cracks, the five we had on that cart are the only five we've ever handled here and were under the protection of the best mercenaries Gem had to offer."

You remember it a little differently - remember them getting rolled up for their lunch money, metaphorically speaking. Literally speaking, you remember them getting ambushed in a blind alley and shot full of bolts without the slightest opportunity to retaliate. "But not the best Creation has to offer."

"No. Not that good," she sighs, "I was worried this morning about being killed in my sleep, now it turns out that dying might well be the better outcome. A talking rock won't pay you though Sharell, no matter how well you've done up till now."

You nod and turn to go, then pause. "I'm not sure I should say this, but the Midnight Tales did help me with the investigation, if I asked you to help protect them from the Despot in the fallout of this."

"Well, you asked," Wave says, "you can tell them to get fucked."

"I might change the wording a little."

"Oh, that's fine. I'm sure my intention will shine through," she smiles, looking just a little less tired.

Even if you're in her good graces currently, it's probably best to not forget Wave didn't get to her position by being nice.

With nothing having tried to kill or maim you this morning (Steals Kisses' punches notwithstanding) you're starting to muse that you're due for some bad luck and as you head back home to figure out your next step, your bad luck is staring you in the face. A red glow comes from your block and oh no not the house won't someone think of the books and the cat runs through your mind on repeat as you run toward it. What awaits you as you skid to a halt is both less and more horrifying than your house being on fire.

There's that feather crown and the mane of red hair and the smell of charred ashes and two charred-black and prone figures are lying in the street with their weapons on the ground and although your house isn't on fire a fair section of the street is and Ten Feathers is just whistling to themselves.

Sharell: Dexterity 3 + Stealth 3 = 2 successes.
Feathers: Perception 4 + Awareness 3 = 4 successes.
Dag nabbit!

That is, until they turn lightning-quick and level their rifle at you as you're about to duck behind something. You can see your death in those eyes, they look eager for an excuse to let flames fly forth. The world shrinks down to just the barrel of the fire wand, a charred ring of metal with the fury of firedust coiled up in its belly ready to bite.

"Ah, not another assassin," they say, flipping the rifle up to rest against their shoulder, "but the very lady I was looking for. You should tell the Guild to be less obvious in their ambuscades. I would almost have thought these weren't expecting me at all." Steals might have given you a crash course in chatting people up but Feathers is on another level as they can say with just a tone and a glance, but of course they can't possibly have been here for anyone else.

They sniff the air in your direction as they begin a stare off, taking lazy steps towards you. You try to match their gaze as it approaches.

Sharell: Perception 3 + Socialize 2 = 2 successes.
Feathers: Perception 4 + Socialize 4 + Specialty 1= 6 successes, enhanced by Scent of Crime merit.
This is Feathers' real specialty, so not really a surprise that it goes badly for us!

"You shouldn't be so surprised, Sharell Zenteno," their smile is impossibly superior, like they're looking at a cornered rat, "criminality is baked into your bones. Smuggling, I think," they circle closer, "trespassing in abundance. Receiving stolen goods. Selling stolen goods. Flaunting authority. Conspiracy, thick enough to choke a horse. Hmm, but no murder, nor sending someone else to murder. These aren't yours. At least not directly." They prod one of the charred bodies on the ground with their foot, and now that you're not staring down a barrel you recognize that the fallen were well-armed and well-armoured. A shame for them it didn't work so well against flame.

Ten Feathers clicks their tongue and your attention is fully returned to the murderer in front of you. They've turned you inside out and read your soul, it has to be some kind of trick, there's no way they could just rattle off all your crimes like that. They threatened Steals the same way, maybe they're just selective in what they do punish and keep a list ready? That… that isn't any more comforting.

While you're puzzling this out you're suddenly aware that they've closed the gap and are towering over you, those bloodthirsty eyes looking right down into yours.

"You've spent enough time skulking in the shadows. It'll save us both a lot of time if you just submit to justice."

They lean in, a finger lovingly caressing the trigger of the fire wand slung over their shoulder.

"Confess your crimes!"

[ ] Tell them everything. Everything.
[ ] Tell them everything - except anything that matters. If knowing your crimes is a bluff, you've done enough pranks in your life to be talking for hours.
[ ] Tell them some things. Some true? Some false? Some bluffs? Some hedges?
-[ ] Write in what you do confess to, true or otherwise.
[ ] Stand your ground. They might be a terrifying killer with impossibly good hair standing over multiple bodies but you don't back down so easily, they'll deal with you as an equal or… well you'll figure out an "or."
[ ] Just run. This is not going to be a good look and they are notoriously relentless but this is a bad place to be. Hide somewhere that isn't home and plan your next move.
-[ ] Use the Spire and just go.
[ ] Other (Write-In)

Guancyto · Nov 17, 2019

Your throat goes dry as you quickly consider your options. Under less serious circumstances that'd be the perfect opening to play this off with a joke, but there's the smell of burning flesh in the air from the recently dispatched bodies and Ten Feathers' eyes have a truly malicious glint from the firelight. You don't want to give them an excuse to add one more to the flames.

"I'm looking for the murderer of Guild Prince Cheshago, likely killed not because of who he was but what he was after. A great treasure of some kind, worth not just killing him but stealing away his soul with a rare crystal from the far South called a Yasal Crystal."

"My, you have been busy," Ten Feathers says, thudding their rifle down between you and leaning on it. "But as interesting as that is, that's hardly a confession. I think I was very clear I wanted to hear more about Sharell Zenteno. Some men just tried to kill me right outside her house and I'm ever so curious what she's done that would warrant such a poor reception."

"I'm investigating this, working for the Guild. An organization that finds itself the victim of a crime is allowed to look into it themselves, providing they don't break the laws of Gem. They picked me, I got paperwork to prove it."

"Quoting law at me won't help," they say, "as far as this conversation is concerned, the law is what I say it is, reality conforms to my opinion and right now, my opinion is you're wasting my time. You better convince me otherwise very quickly."

"I'm doing it as a favour, they helped me get justice for a friend. I've pushed pretty hard to get to the bottom of it, if I'm looking for a killer I have to look where I'm not wanted right? These two," you gesture, you don't want to look at them right now, "probably worked for Guild Prince Diamond in Your Knapsack. He's fighting with the Prince in charge-"

"Factor, dear."

What? "What? What factor?"

"The Guild functionary in charge of operations in a place as important as Gem is called the Factor. It's a sign of respect and trust from the organization as a whole. Princes are more like… daimyos loosely directed by a shogun, as it were."

You knew all of the second part (and also the way to become the Prince In Charge is to comprehensively demonstrate to the Guild that you can handle the position), but not the names for things. You're not sure what's worse, that you've dealt as much as you have with the Guild without knowing what the ranks are called, or that you're very sure you've referred to Waves as a Prince to her subordinates and nobody's ever corrected you before now.

Not now! Focus! "Diamond is having a private war with the Factor, which Cheshago was playing both sides of," you continue. "If Diamond thinks I'm a good soldier for Wave or some kind of unstoppable outside bet he probably sent them here to scope me out. Or kill me. If he really wanted to assassinate the Despot's Hound he's got better people for that. I found out he's hired a group of deserters from the Scarlet Empire's Legions to do his dirty work."

Feathers peers at you curiously. Yeah, you thought they'd like that one. The Despot once killed a man's entire household over the murder of a disgraced member of a Dragon's family, all to keep the Dragons happy with him and pleasantly distant. Turning over traitors to their Empire, though? Can't buy that kind of goodwill, and Feathers must know it.

"With such strength at his disposal, why would he send such meager assassins?" Feathers strokes their chin, "could it be that he's not taking me seriously? Or were they really just there for… hm."

Oh. Great. They sound insulted. Well, great. You can just have all your problems kill each other.

They return their attention to you, their look focused and sharp as a razor's edge. "Crimes, Sharell. You really can't hide from me by confessing to other people's misdeeds."

Wits 2 + Integrity 3 vs Charisma 4 + Presence 3 = 1 success vs 4 successes, plus Appearance penalty. Sorry, Tales, we tried!

You rack your brains. What had they said? Trespassing. "Trespassing! The Midnight Tales are clearly hiding something, I had a look around their offices to see what. They've got a set of black books that'll-"

"I've seen them," Feathers is already looking ready to stifle a yawn, which you really hope is an affectation.

"You have."

"I don't know if you've noticed but I can be very persuasive."

"So you know about all the weird magical bullshit?"

Well, that's not yawn-worthy. "No," Feathers says, suddenly more attentive again, "underselling their profits, exaggerating the size of their parties and pocketing the difference. Criminality, but this is Gem, I'd need to burn the whole city to be rid of that." There's a lazy, casual way to how they bring up the possibility that makes your spine tingle.

The Tales have two sets of black books? One to fall back on in case the Despot decides to shake them down? That's… actually a lot more competent than you expected from them. "They don't actually import their dreamstones, they just sort of happen, as far as I can tell. And then they disappear again, and the only thing they wrote down about that arrangement was a weird magic symbol. And they have secret passages in their Trading House."

Feathers takes a step back and you can breathe, if only for a second. They almost look interested. "Write it down for me."

You tear off a page of your notebook and sketch the sigil. Your copy isn't quite right in a way you can't put your finger on, quite aside from the way that you can absolutely put your finger on which is that you can look at it without your eyes suddenly going funny.

"I'll look into it," they say as they examine it, and that's all they say about it before it goes into their coat. You wince, that's going to get smudged. "Well, that certainly accounts for all the trespassing. Petty theft?"

"I, er." You didn't steal from anyone, except their secrets, did you? "Oh! Investigating the Tales, I used their ink to write down their malfeasance. Instead of my charcoal pencil. So it'd be more legible if I gave it to the Despot, because I am a law-abiding citizen who only wants to help."

"Again, not your decision to make. That is a remarkably petty crime though, using ink just in case you wanted to pass on information to the Despot. Tell me though, should the Despot only learn of these crimes at the whims of Sharell Zenteno? You seem a lot less eager to help than you profess."

"I'm helping right now?" you say, hesitantly. Ten Feathers considers it and then waves a hand dismissively.

"You're helping yourself right now, saving up scraps of people's misdeeds to throw out only when it suits you," they laugh and you try to ease the tension by laughing along with them. It's a mistake, they catch your jaw in one hand and tilt your head up, choking the laughter right out of you.

"I can forgive that your crimes are so far incredibly dull, or that you think you can work around me without me noticing. But don't try to use my own tricks against me, you're not as good at it and you never will be."

They ease off your jaw and pat your cheek.

"So we've another investigator in Gem who thinks she can do a better job than Ten Feathers, despite all the evidence otherwise. Now never let it be said I do not enjoy a challenge, but you? You look like a light breeze would bowl you over," they say and takes a step back, tilting their head to look at you.

Perception 3 + Socialize 2 = 3 Successes.
Ten Feathers doesn't want Sharell to back down here.

"I knew about the Imperials and saw things in the Tales books you missed," you say, rubbing your cheek. Ten Feathers' mercurial mood leaves you guessing a lot, but they'd made mention a few times now of boredom. It might just be worth needling them a little, just to avoid being boring in their eyes.

"Oh! So you're smarter than I am? That's your advantage here? " they say and wave a hand to the burning corpses behind them. "You were going to kill them with some clever deduction, were you? Solve the riddle of how to avoid taking a knife through the gut and ripping you open from end to end. I would like to have seen that."

You square up your shoulders. If you're doing this you might as well go all in. "You're only here because you can't solve this yourself. You're stuck, aren't you?"

Ten Feathers gives you a slow clap, which even for them is a bit much.

"Close! So very close and you had the guts to say it, which I do like," they say, wagging a finger at you. "But I didn't come here because I thought you might know something I didn't. I came here because you are involved in things so much bigger than you deserve and if there's one thing that really bothers me, it's people not sticking to their roles."

They give you one of their annoyingly pretty smiles and flick back their hair, a hand theatrically pressed to their chest.

"You want to rise above your station and try to be my shadow? Then you're going to prove to me you actually deserve that. I think I know who killed Cheshago, I can't prove it quite yet but that's really just the details and if you can't keep up with me, you shouldn't be here."

They sway in their stance and then bow forward so they can whisper up close, your faces barely an inch apart.

"So, Sharell. Who do you think is the murderer?"

Well, it's a good question. Not necessarily something you want to share right now, but a good question.
(Your choice (particularly the outside bets) will unlock new, more aggressive investigation options. You may change your mind later.)

[ ] Diamond in Your Knapsack and the rebellious Guild faction. Guild Prince Cheshago was toying with him on this treasure business and he decided to cut the knot and take the goods for himself.
[ ] The Midnight Tales, the smug dream merchants with too much money to burn. Killing him inside their Trading House is a stupid, stupid idea, but everything you've learned about them so far does not scream "smart."
[ ] Wave Crashes against the Rocks and the main Guild faction. She's got a Guild War on her hands and if Cheshago was playing both sides she might have decided he was on the wrong one. She did hire you to investigate... but she did hire you to investigate. You've never done a murder investigation before! Surely the Guild has better people!
[ ] Mishri, Red and the Old Brothers. They hated him and wanted him dead. Couldn't afford a Yasal Crystal in a million years, but a ghost might have the power to steal away other ghosts even without such assistance.
[ ] No one. Cheshago faked his own murder. Isn't it convenient that the soul was missing (and thus could never be interrogated), so no one could tell whether or not the body was a double?
[ ] YOU! TEN FEATHERS, I ACCUSE YOU! The Handsome Merchant said that faerie powers can steal souls, but that none would be crass enough to do it all at once. If you're looking for someone with faerie powers that's crass and murderous, J'ACCUSE!
[ ] You don't know. You have a lot of suspicions, but you're not willing to accuse anyone without concrete proof.
[ ] Other (write-in)

And what you tell them, do you think it's true?

[ ] Yes. This case is a little out of your depth, if you and the Hound are pointed in the same direction at least one of you might crack it. Justice will be done.
[ ] Yes. Lying to Feathers is going to go so badly and they are so scary just get them out of your face please.
[ ] No, it's a bluff. You don't want to share your ideas with someone this unstable.
-[ ] Write in who you actually think is responsible.

Blaze of Glory (Exalted)

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