[X] Plan I Have Mainly Shady Interests
-[X] Ms. Graves.
-[X] Front door.
-[X] Mysterious.
-[1] About ghosts.
-[2] About recent, major supernatural events
-[3] About magic-users.
-[4] This gang-war.
It's more that Cora thinks so similarly to me that I don't immediately realize she's supposed to be creepy. It's just nice to know everything, about everything and everybody. Why wouldn't you naturally seek information superiority in all aspects of life?
Vote closes at noon, please get your votes in! Also, post a tally then, even though I'm going to be out. Update will probably be Monday, might be Tuesday, I'm guessing (based on my prior patterns).
[X] Plan I Have Mainly Shady Interests
-[X] Ms. Graves.
-[X] Front door.
-[X] Mysterious.
-[1] About ghosts.
-[2] About recent, major supernatural events
-[3] About magic-users.
-[4] This gang-war.
[X] Ms. Graves.
[X] Front door.
[X] Mysterious.
[1] About ghosts.
[2] About recent, major supernatural events
[3] About magic-users.
[4] This gang-war.
[X] Ms. Graves.
[X] Front door.
[X] Mysterious.
[1] About ghosts.
[2] About recent, major supernatural events
[3] About magic-users.
[4] This gang-war.
[X] Plan I Have Mainly Shady Interests
-[X] Ms. Graves.
-[X] Front door.
-[X] Mysterious.
-[1] About ghosts.
-[2] About recent, major supernatural events
-[3] About magic-users.
-[4] This gang-war.
[X] Ms. Graves.
[X] Front door.
[X] Mysterious.
[1] About ghosts.
[2] About recent, major supernatural events
[3] About magic-users.
[4] This gang-war.
[X] Plan I Have Mainly Shady Interests
-[X] Ms. Graves.
-[X] Front door.
-[X] Mysterious.
-[1] About ghosts.
-[2] About recent, major supernatural events
-[3] About magic-users.
-[4] This gang-war.
[X] Plan I Have Scholarly Interests
-[X] Ms. Graves.
-[X] Front door.
-[X] Studious.
-[1] About ghosts.
-[2] About recent, major supernatural events
-[3] About magic-users.
-[4] This gang-war.
The Freehold of the Phoenix is a troubled one indeed, from its heyday in the early 20th century. Chicago is not a place that Changelings go to make a stable new life, and the Hedge is a large part of it. Dangerous and unstable, and home to more than a few powerful goblins and Exiles, it is a flashpoint for any number of threats that sometimes spill beyond the bounds of Chicago into the rest of the world, so of course Cora has agents in place to monitor the situation.[1]
Not long after the transition, a threat had shown itself to them.
The Count of Crime, a green-eyed True Fae Exile whose very soul was that of a predator, who civilized crime and put it under his control, whose cold, calculating civility made him a 'gentleman' like the old gangsters wanted to be viewed. He controlled a surprising amount of the Hedge in the area, with tons of goblin lackeys, and always was sticking his finger in mortal affairs besides.
More specifically, the Count of Crime had hired Ratty Wilson, another Exile--this one having more in the domain of the common criminal, weaker than the Count--to gain new information on this new world and its possibilities.
And his first stop was to the lair of a dark sorcerer of seemingly unimaginable power, who could grant vast wealth to others and only deigned not to, who advertised his prowess for all to see. And from this, for the mere promise of material wealth, this dark sorcerer swore to use his vast power to aid in the vile designs of the Count of Crime, and not only that, but provided Wilson with several short tomes of arcane lore.[2]
He had then proceeded to do the work of providing vital information to the enemy of the Freehold on the nature of the new world, entirely and completely against even the basest of moral systems, making him a vital threat.
Currently, the entire Freehold was bickering on what to do to stop him. Spring of course suggested seducing him or poisoning him. Summer wanted to challenge him to a fight, Autumn wanted to either assassinate him or outmaneuver him and force him to join the side, and Winter was torn right down the middle between just putting a bullet in the back of his head from a nice distance and running away in terror.
Either way, they swore that they would not let the Count of Crime gain even more power than he already possessed.
I'm honestly surprised that none of them considered just talking to Harry. Although I suppose Springs seduction idea counts as that to some degree. It wouldn't be the first or last time he had to deal with a dangerous, over-sexed, supernatural being.
Actually wouldn't Harry sense the rather powerful supernatural nature of the Exiled True Fae?
I think at this point in his career Harry was wont to (sparingly) summon demons and other Nevernever spirits for information. Is he trading knowledge for knowledge with the Fae?
What struck me most were how useful NWoD ghosts seem to be for this sort of thing. I'd be surprised if there aren't other Changelings that have ghost familiars floating invisibly after people they are interested in.
Assuming that someone as busy as Cora hadn't the time to personally stalk/research her target as thoroughly as she did and that it wasn't all thanks to her ghosts; I think I'd like to see her interact with those of her agents & contacts that made it possible. We haven't really seen how she communicates with them or keeps them sweet (fear will only go so far after all).
Ratty Wilson is just pretty good at hiding his nature. It's part of his nature that he can hide his nature.
Basically...you know what, I'll put a description of him later. Because this misunderstanding is weird and I need to squash how people are reading the literal words on the page and somehow getting Marcone. It's annoying as heck. Plus, Ratty Wilson should be explained.
St. Louis wasn't a nice city, not really. Whatever Booster said, and whatever the slow drop in crime meant, it didn't mean the revival of St. Louis. St. Louis had spent decades shrinking, and ultimately Cora Graves didn't see any path towards it becoming a model city. It had a murder rate far worse than Chicago, despite the latter having a far worse reputation, and that wasn't going to change anytime soon.
There was beauty in St. Louis, and plenty of reasons for someone to live there. St. Louis produced all that one imagined a city would: culture, arts, families, lives and lifestyles. She knew the world well enough, and had studied all the ways that people could live, that people had lived all around the world in different cultures and circumstances, that she didn't have an expectation of paradise, and so she looked on Lillian Abbot with that in mind, just as she looked upon St. Louis.
Lillian Abbot had a nice little life, once one stopped expected wealth and riches, and her neighborhood wasn't that bad, but Cora Graves still came in her worst-looking car and parked several blocks away. Best not to signal too much, and if the car was stolen, other than some abstractions and other ritual ingredients in the trunk, there was nothing that she would actually miss, and she could track down the car besides.
In the back seat, Jeanne leapt up onto the seat and twirled around, "How does it look?"
Cora Graves glanced back for the second time, her eyes scanning over Jeanne briefly. Jeanne had been 'trying on' clothes for some time before the meeting, and she had finally decided on a rather old-fashioned dress, long and dark green, with with fringing. It was not a dress that most girls her age would have worn, and she looked a little like a doll. But a beautiful doll at that, and she'd pinned her hair back and put out all the stops.
Even had she wanted to leave Jeanne and Jacques behind, she wouldn't have ever heard the end of it.
"The Magi shall be most impressed," Jacques grunted, then shook his big head. He wore dark robes of the sort that Cora Graves thought were far too dramatic, but he'd decided that this was what he wanted to wear, that he didn't want to come across like the almost illiterate laborer he'd been in life.
He'd always tried to model himself more on the priest, and thaumaturge, who had consuled him in the last weeks before his execution--there had been some matter which had delayed it, but the trial was swift enough, the sentence easy enough, that the time was only long enough for a seed to be planted.
God and magic.
Jeanne looked uncertainly over at Jacques. She clearly didn't trust his taste in fashion. Whether because he was a man or because he in fact was wearing a 'wizard's' robe unironically, Cora Graves could only speculate. Of course, the answer was both. She bit her lip and looked at Cora for a long moment.
"Yes, you look very stunning," Cora Graves said, "Remember, you are to wait out of sight if you can manage until I raise my hand like so." She held it up, as if hailing someone. Sometimes there was room for complex signs and countersigns. But from across the evening night, why not keep it simple.
Night had just fallen, and with it the headache had receded. That was a curse that came with power, though it wasn't always a headache. Sometimes she got rather bad sinus allergies, or an ear-ache, and she became near-sighted often enough that she had a small Token that corrected her vision. It all depended, day by day, and it was the price paid for the Wyrd that wrapped itself around her and gave her strength.
She understood the principles of it well enough, she thought as she exited the car and began the hike to the apartment building. She wasn't the sort of Changeling who published books on what she did, thought it madness, but she'd studied the principles of it well enough, though she knew her understanding of the Tale aspect of it was lacking in a way that she knew was at least slightly crippling her understanding of it.
Either way, she moved forward, the ghosts filing in behind her far enough to be out of sight of anyone who truly wanted to pay attention to a woman in a hoodie and jeans who stopped at crosswalks, nodded politely at anyone who passed, and made her way unerringly towards the small complex of apartments. They were outdoors, or rather there was an outdoor stairwell, and so each of the apartments was rather more separate, at least in appearance, then a more enclosed building. In theory, there was even a security guard or two, retired cops, who patrolled the area at night.
In practice, she slipped in effortlessly and prowled the grounds, walking rapidly up the stairs, and then taking a left, glancing down, to where Jacques and Jeanne crouched behind a car. She walked past a window, which from her previous studies of the area opened up to a bedroom[1], to knock on the door.
On the third knock, Lillian opened the door. She was dressed in sweatpants and the kind of T-shirt that someone wore to bed, big enough that it might have been a former boyfriend's. The woman looked tired, a little out of shape, and rather unnerved, her dark eyes taking in Cora for a moment before she said, "Hello? How may I…"
Cora could have finished her sentence for her, but she didn't want to unnerve the poor woman too much, so she stood, impassively, and shook her head after a moment when no more words materialized. "I'm Mrs. Graves, I wanted to speak to you about the matter of the ritual you engaged in around five nights ago."
Beyond the woman, she could see a lamp and what looked like a rather comfortable chair, and an opened bible. A little reading before bed, perhaps.
"I have no idea--" Lillian began.
"I am sure," Cora said, "I'm not necessarily an enemy. Whatever ritual you did to eat the sins of those gang-bangers and banish their soul was interesting, of a sort I have never seen."
Lillian Abbot turned even more pale, clutching the door for a moment, looking as if she wanted to run far away. "I wasn't...how did." She took a deep breath and said, "I don't know what you are talking about."
"I wonder why the ritual causes physical sickness," Cora said, "Is it required? Or is that merely one manifestation of the costs that many rituals have? Either way, I would like to come inside and discuss it with you."
"N-no thank you. Here is fine," Lillian said, and it looked like she was resisting closing the door on her.
"Can we at least dispose of the idea that you do not possess magic? It would make this all flow much faster," Cora said, quietly, "And allow us to at least cover the question at hand. Your Lemur's Lure, as I have heard it called, tugged out to allies of my own, and drew my attention."
"Lemur's…" Lillian began.
"The call you sent out, like a beacon. Easy enough to follow, and once I was there?" Cora shrugged, "Easy enough to watch."
"It should have only worked on ghosts, and you don't look like one," Lillian said, then narrowed her eyes a little fearfully, reaching out to grab a cross and hold it forward, "Unless you've possessed this woman?"
"I have ghosts who are my allies. They sensed it, and they followed it back. Rather elementary. If you wish for their word that I do not intend to hurt you, it can be given."
Cora raised a hand and said, "It was an interesting thing you did, in laying to rest spirits. I assume that there was a reason for it?"
"Shades that don't see rest, that die badly, they can become dangerous to others," Lillian said, "And there are those who think that bad. God by his grace has given me the power to help others and to set the world right, as Jesus Christ did on the cross all those centuries ago, and so I do. My faith is a shield." She held out the cross, eyes hard, though her hand was trembling.
"I know," Cora said, "And perhaps it shall do you some credit. I've seen how active you are in church. What I am curious of is whether ghosts truly go bad that often? I would believe it based on my experience, but circumstances here might be different."
She could see the gears turn in Lillian's head, but the woman wisely didn't lower the cross, for all that it shouldn't do anything. Of course, Cora knew that many Mages used focus items, and it was quite likely that this was one as well. Or perhaps the woman thought that it would hurt her.
Jeanne reached the top first, and Lillian said, "Run, child!" She thrust the cross at Cora, who stepped easily aside, though it brushed against her hoodie. Then, when Jeanne didn't run and Cora merely looked at her annoyed, she asked, "What are you...what are you wearing?"
"Hey Cora, is this the magic lady?" Jeanne asked.
"She dressed up," Cora explained, her face blank.
"Nice to meetcha, I'm Jeanne, smile for the camera," Jeanne said, pulling out a camera from nowhere.
"The fact that you can see her already gives the lie to any claim that you aren't supernatural," Cora explained, "She's a ghost."
"She just looks like a girl," Lillian said, her mouth wide, taking a step back already.
Cora stepped out of the way as the old-fashioned camera flashed.
Cora had noticed that, when she'd looked around and discovered several locations where ghosts tended to gather. They were especially common around graveyards, which in one sense might seem obvious, except that in her own world, ghosts had not been quite so concentrated. Or translucent and obviously dead. Jeanne, meanwhile, looked normal.
"Indeed she does," Cora said, as Jacques stepped up and past Jeanne, giving a bow.
"Magi, one of the wise, by god's grace," he muttered, staring at her. Cora could see the desire. He was visible now, but that wasn't quite the same as manifested.
She could tell partially because Lillian Abbot wasn't screaming. His visage was not remotely terrifying, yet when he manifested, he pushed out fear of a rather high calibre. Higher than anything that fool Jonathan Gardiner had managed, though it was fear that she'd resisted time and time again, until it had reached the point where she didn't even feel it.
"By his grace, yes," Lillian said, "I am not sure at my wisdom. Or at the wisdom of ever letting you in."
"I shall not harm you tonight, I swear so," she said, feeling the Wyrd wrap around her words. It wanted them to be a pledge, it wanted to bind her to them, and she could have brushed them off, the way one might cobwebs. Instead, she embraced it.
"Very...well. If you wished to attack me, could you go through the barrier?"
"I don't see why not." Cora Graves stepped through, and Jeanne and Jacques followed. It was a nice place, clearly unoccupied as her previous surveys had indicated, and it looked exactly as her agent, a human thief, had indicated.
There was a painting on the wall that showed the crucifixion, and she also knew that the woman held quite a few books on both the mystic and the religious.
"There was little wisdom in sending out so far. I could feel it. The metaphysical pull, like--" Jacques aid.
"It was really...weird. And scary," Jeanne said, frowning.
"I apologize, but I needed to grab the ghosts from far away, because I am not strong," she admitted, looking genuinely remorseful, "If I'd gone into gang territory, I could be at risk."
"From the vampires?" Cora asked.
Lillian winced, "Yes, the vampires. And other things. The gang conflict is getting worse, and innocents are getting caught in the crossfire. T--someone told me to be careful, so I was." She paused, looking lost and a little afraid, "And I was. But you saw me anyways."
Cora hesitated for a moment. She wasn't used to hesitation, but something told her there was too far to push.
"Do you want any tea?" Jeanne asked, "You look really stressed."
"S-sure, but can you affect the material? Most ghosts can't," the woman said.
"Jacques," Jeanne said solemnly, "You can be my hands."
"Very well," Jacques said, "But what if the Magi attacks?"
"If she truly is wise, she shall not," Cora said in French to Jacques.
Jacques nodded, and from the look on Lillian's face, she didn't understand it.
When they were away, Lillian said, "T-those weren't normal ghosts."
"I would say they were normal, but the ghosts I've encountered lately don't follow certain rules I'm familiar with. That is partially why I am here, to learn the new rules. I wonder why you have not formed an alliance with a ghost to protect this place better," Cora said.
"He's his own ghost, but I do have help, sometimes," Lillian said, "But...you make it sound as if you were there when I did the ritual."
"No, I came too late by a half-dozen minutes. I was occupied otherwise. But it was easy to pick up traces of what you had did and recreate them from there," Cora said, keeping back her exact methods, "Childishly so. The ritual you do, how did you learn it?"
"I was given it," Lillian said, "I always had power, but by the grace of god I have been given more, and if you intend to harm the spirits of this city, if you've come here to learn how to call them to devour or enslave them--"
"I already know how to call them," Cora said, "There are many methods. As to enslaving them, that is not in my interests. They can be a potent source of information, but ghosts, especially the ghosts in this city, seem quite limited. I have never seen one during the day, for one."
"...your ghosts can go out during the day?" Lillian asked, eyes trembling, and she saw the hooks of fascination that lay there.
"Yes, naturally," Cora said, "And they are not barred from entering houses as the ghosts I have observed are, and there might be other rules you could tell to me."
"W-why would I, or anything about what I gained?" Lillian said, trembling, "If you're threatening me, you can leave."
There was the sound of the oven turning on, and Cora waited for a moment, glancing over at the small television and the couch before moving over towards it. "I have goals and desire of my own, yet they intersect. You wish for knowledge, I am sure."
And then she looked at Lillian. Truly looked at her. Booster described it in his own strange way, but Cora saw it in her own way. For her, it was as if the words, the desires, were pulled out of her and arranged in front of her, written simply and cleanly, but more than that, like a poem, or a perfect sentence.
Whereas Booster just knew because he knew, Cora knew because the information was presented in a way in which a true reader couldn't help but know it, and when she didn't invoke the Contract correctly, the words merely became blurred and jumbled.
'She has a crush on the security guard' one read, and the words conveyed more than that. It was impossible to say, but the words formed in her head a poem, a careful arrangement of meaning about awkward and uncertain romance, about the feeling of attraction without the confidence to fully embrace it. It told a typical enough story, and so she merely filed that away.
'She wishes to bring peace to the dead and help others.' That, that was obvious, and also useful.
"And you wish to help others. Bringing ghosts to rest is something I have done before," Cora said as she sat down, "Jaques himself was a murderer before I tamed him. And I have helped many before. I can do things that I suspect you might only dream of, but I need knowledge of what can be done and what can't. Because recent supernatural events are advancing, threats and dangers. You know of the vampires, do you not?"
"Of course, but I cannot possibly stop the war and the death. This city, I can't even count the deaths," Lillian said.
"Then why not send them to rest?" Cora asked.
"It is not so simple, you need to fulfill their desires that led them to be a ghost, or you have to destroy them, but they're not people anyways...but even if they aren't, I have to protect them. Many of the others don't care about them."
"There are other magi?" Jacques asked, peeking his head out of the kitchen, "Do they know god's word and wisdom?"
Lillian looked a little uncertain.
"Jacques found religion and magic itself before his execution," Cora said simply.
"Execution?"
"For murder," she said with a shrug, "Either way, what is the barrier that holds ghosts back?"
"That is the Threshold," Lillian said, confused, "How can you not…"
Cora just smiled and shrugged as Jacques came in holding two cups of tea.
"Thank you," Lillian said, "How did you know I like camomile?"
Jeanne, thankfully, did not state that it was because Cora had given her a briefing on the matter, and instead said, "Cause you were almost out of it, so that had to be your favorite."
Cora accepted her cup and sipped it, taking a moment to enjoy the flavor, before saying, "Information is need to know only. So Thresholds hold back ghosts, what else do they do?"
"Well, many magical creatures can't get through Thresholds without leaving some of their power behind, the sun burns away magic with the transition…" Lillian trailed off for a moment, "God willing, that is enough."
"Ghosts are echoes, I'd assume?" Cora asked.
"Something like that, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve protection," Lillian said, her eyes narrowing for a moment, as she raised her cross.
"And you see yourself as their protector?" Cora asked, "Admirable. I may ask more about the nature of your magic at a later date, but for the moment it is nice to know that there is an ally out there. At the moment I have only my ghostly familiars," she lied, rather boldly, "More connections are always valuable." She stood for a moment, to stretch her legs, and also because Jacques had tensed.
"I felt something. Mystically," Jacques said.
"Jeanne, check out what it is."
"What is it?" Lillian asked.
Cora shrugged, "Hurry."
Jeanne grinned and blurred as she sprinted out of the room. She could of course just leap off the balcony just as well as anything, but either way, Cora knew it wouldn't take the ghost girl long to find out what she wanted to know.
It wasn't two-dozen tense seconds later when Jeanne hurried back in, "Some security guard person got stabbed, badly."
"Oh, it must be the guard here," Lillian said, frowning, "Badly…?"
"He's bleeding all over," Jeanne said.
"I should call 911," Lillian said, tensing uncertainly.
"Do so. Do you have a first-aid kit?" Cora said authoritatively, "Give it to me if you do. I shall do what can be done."
"As long as you aren't planning something…" Lillian said.
Cora felt the urge to snap back, but it was a distant one. Of course Lillian had reasons to distrust her, but she calmly said, "I am planning on saving a life. The paramedics will need time to get here. We shall talk later: someone stabbed like this suggests he was caught in the middle of something. Crime and death," Cora said, grabbing the first-aid kit as Lillian offered it, "Are problems we both share in common. Whoever your friend is who advised you, and whatever else you know, is a matter for another time."
Cora moved to the door and stepped through, hurrying down to follow Jeanne. What she could do was rather limited, of course. She had some jerky in her possession, and were the guard--not the guard that Lillian had a crush on, she could tell--a Changeling, she could easily heal him totally. But her own capacity to heal mortals was limited, which was partially why she had learned Healing Sacrifice and Gift of Warm Breath. Even so, if she had actually been focused on healing, there was far more she could have learned.
She mostly left that to others, however. She had Autumn Courtiers who specialized in those areas that she merely dabbled in. But at the moment, that did leave her options quite limited, especially since stab wounds could be quite tricky.
She came upon the man in a dark corner, near an empty apartment, the lights all off, whose door had been forced open. Common burglars, that was all, but stupid to have turned theft into potential murder. The man had salt-and-pepper hair, was slightly overweight, and had been beaten rather badly before having been stabbed several times, rather inexpertly. It was remarkable how clumsy people could get with a knife, and so the chance of death was merely rather high if nobody came rather than all but certain. In fact, with the paramedics called this early, he might even survive if Cora walked away.
But it never hurt to increase the chances. She knelt down close to him and took a deep breath and then pushed it out onto him, feeling a little bit of warmth flow out of her and into him. The circles around his eyes slipped away, and the bruises all faded as one, leaving just the multiple stab wounds. In a technical sense, the whole act of magic hadn't brought him closer to living, but it did mean there would be less additional injuries to tend to, which might help recovery.
Now she just had to apply first aid. Staunch the bleeding, and everything else could be sorted out later. She was faster at it than most would expect, moving through the relatively simple first-aid kit as if she had packed it herself, hurrying to at least treat the wounds.
She wasn't as fast as she hoped, and she was getting blood all over her hoodie, but she worked steadily and two minutes later she stood up and said, "There." She stood up, then frowned. Lillian wouldn't know where the man was.
"Jacques, go knock on her door," Cora said, "Have her go down and stay here to make sure he is not overlooked." She could try to move him towards a more public area, if she were a moron who wanted the wounds to re-open after having spent two minutes staunching them.
She checked to see whether she was being followed, and then said as Jacques raced off, "Jeanne, turn your head."
She breathed in and the smoke filled her lungs and then she was hidden from all. And she felt as if this would last more than long enough to get to the car. That had not gone quite as she imagined, but Lillian was interested, if also unnerved and carefully kept low on knowledge that she might use against Cora.
Either way, the fact that there were more magical users, as well as more of the rules that she could suss out or ask Lillian about at a later date, she had to say that it was probably a success.
She reached her car easily, and from there she was gone just before the ambulances roared in.
[1] IC: Her quick mathematics told her that, indeed, a sniper shot, if the sniper knew the layout of the bedroom and knew that the target was asleep, had at least a pretty decent chance of killing Lillian, if he or she had set themselves up in the building across the way. Or, one supposed, they could just stand in front of the window and pour fire in, and then use the door they'd carefully unlocked as a portal, but at that point, they might as well just break in and murder her quietly if they really wanted to.
Stealth (In Darkness): 6 successes
Presence+Socialize: 5 dice=1 success
Persuasion: 3 successes vs. Resolve+Composure: 3 successes
'Attack': chance die, no ten again=1 success
Empathy: 1 success
Cupid's Eye, opposed roll: 11 vs. 5 dice=8 versus 2 successes
Perception: 4 successes
Ghost Speed: Normal speed=10. X3 for speed=30 x2 for running=60=41 mph
Keeping Cool-1 (Seriously I'm about to go save a life shut up)=9 successes, jesus christ.
Gift of Warm Breath: 5 dice=1 success, which is enough, remember, to do what needs to be done.
Dex+Medicine+1 (Steady hands)=6 dice=2 successses
Dex+Medicine+1=6 dice (extended, you know)=1 success
Roll 3: 1 success
Roll 4: 3 successes, there we go. Only needed 1 more anyways. Normally that would have been 4 minutes worth of rolls, but Cora did it in only two.
Ghostly Persuasion: 1 success
Light-Shy: 6 (Int)+7 (Wyrd)+1 (Unobserved)=14 dice, 8 again (Good at Everything Magical Activated)=6 successes, score!
A/N: you did pretty well with the d100/etc rolls. A worse/better roll on some of that might have led to an actual fight scene where people saw Cora and went after her, rather than just a quick healing scene completely unrelated to Cora except that she got in on helping people because she's Kind. Also, yes, granting Cora some more healing prowess is something that could be bought/done, though to a certain extent her 'I have people for this' argument is 100% true. Monarchs aren't at all required to personally possess every single Contract that could possibly be useful. Still, it'll be an option, and expanding personal options isn't really a bad thing.
What will be really interesting is to see who Lillian goes and confides in after this visit. Following her will start leading us to the broader network of magic users within the city.
That went well, a successfull first contact and I guess helping a random security guard is no standard Blampire procedure, so Cora is sending mixed signals.
Okay, so, for tomorrow. Going to do the Ratty Wilson thing, and also going to finish up writing the 'Aftermath.' Then on Wednesday Turn 1--C will be out...with a vote for you to vote on, yay!
