Epilogues

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Scipion_Emilien
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Post by Scipion_Emilien »

Vili Rosnel was going back to his sense. His first surprise was to see the Manoir Depenombre destroy and in ruins.

Then he start to remember his evening. "Oh no by the lawgiver!"
He remember that after tasting a little too much of this northerner wine he go outside with another guest to hunt this serving wench. Of course in the night, he lost the sight of the other guest and the wench. And finally he lost his footage and his head hurt hard an adjacent tree.

He feel more than ashamed. He had abandonned his lord and fellow compatriote for the pleasure of wine and for a wench!

"Well I only hope i ll be able to go to the iron paradise after that" does he thought. Then he remembered that his own research, the same that he was doing for the fraternity would perhaps grant him the passage to the iron paradise even after that.

He get up and try to see what he could do, he had missed Van Rijn conference and he would have to explain his strange disaperance to his lord if he want to continue his researches. Perhaps a Vistani tribe his around, it would save him a lot of time and trouble and it would be well worth the money to end this unglorious adventure rapidly.


He will, as he was always been, be a sleeping agent for the Fraternity in Nova Vaasa. His only hope would be that in the future, someone of the FoS would make him wake up.
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Moral Machivelli
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Post by Moral Machivelli »

OOC: Back in time a little please. This happened in the carriage ride, away from the Manoir de Penombre.

IC: This will not be easy, muses a certain black haired Borcan.

This has barely started. It is unlikely all those loyal to Rijin have revealed themselves here. They are still hidden within our organization. Waiting to strike.

And what of that traitor ? [/i] Buchvold's face transformed into a grimace. Hopefully, he died with the manoir.... but he was, or is a lich. If he had relocated his Phylactery....

The Unholy Order has attacked us En Masse. What are they thinking? What thought’s pass through their cold dead brains? This is tantamount to a declaration of war....

The Fraternity hasn't been attacked for fifty years. Oh, various cells of the organization had come under attack, had sometimes even been wiped out. But the organization itself had not been attacked since that embarrassing little matter with the Kargrat. And no one here, save the oldest of the fathers can remember that. And they were mere Initiates at the time.

We are not ready for this.

We’d better start preparing at once.

The Borcan Illusionist starts rummaging in his pocket for a notebook. He started. It wasn’t there. The contract he’d gotten Hawke to sign. It was missing.

Damn Damn Damn!!!!! Who could have taken it? No one would have had the chance to….

He recalled a minor incident at the diner table. The subsequent… fiasco had driven it from his mind. The man sitting next to him, dropped a spoon he bent down to pick it up again. A man with untidy black hair …

Mr. Crow…

Buchvold composed himself. Even though the man has cheated me He reasoned He is still loyal to the Fraternity. Therefore, he is my ally, ten thousand nightshades or no.

The Borcan removed from his pocket a small black notebook, and began to take down the names of those who travelled with him tonight, together with their branch of the organization. He included also the names of those who had simply ran, so long as the person had demonstrated their loyalty to the Fraternity. And despite Buchvold’s dislike of him, he included Crow.

Now it begins.
The second War of Shadows.
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alhoon
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Post by alhoon »

Draxton paced up and down the corridors of the new house of the fraternity, absentmindely helping and ordering servants around. Death! The Doomsday device! A lich among us!
Since he hasn't done much in the fight, running invisible all along he wasn't as tired as the rest. He has also slept in the journey.

He would wait, bade his time until the rest go to sleep. Then and only then he will move out with a couple of charmed servants and shovels. Move out and to the east. Oh yes, he would start experiments right there, right now! For the best interests of the fraternity, it should be armed with the weapons that their enemies use; powerful weapons. To understand the world you have to understand death. There is no start without an ending.
What made the zombies that strong, powerful enough to tear through enchanted iron? How hard was the dead flesh? What could be used to strengthen the brittle skeleton bones of long decayed dead?
Today it will just be a quick anatomy check.
Tomorrow he will check the foundations of what little he knew about necromantic spells on the results of his subjects
In a month he could attempt to control an animated, mindless obediend.
In a year he would start recruiting permanent members to an undead army that will eventually trample on the ashes of Van Rijn and restore order to the Fraternity.
The night has proven Van Rijn right. The fathers were wrong. It is due time to include a necromancer in their higher ranks.
Knowledge, he needed knowledge! Surely the Fraternity would turn to finding the lost lore. He could search the lands. Darkon has many wizards . . . and undead.

Draxton Serd laughs wildly. A couple of passing servants look curiously the old man, but dismiss his reaction as the result of a night of stress.
In time, they would learn to be more careful
"You truly see what a person is made of, when you begin to slice into them" - Semirhage
"I am not mad, no matter what you're implying." - Litalia
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Pamela
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Post by Pamela »

November 8

The doors splinter and a grey arm pulls back from the splinters, sloughing off patches of decayed flesh as it retracts. She hovers, pulse pounding in her temples, its beat heightened by the shrieks of fleeing women. The rest of the Fraternity are silently slipping away. She wants to leave, but is unable to move-

Where is he? Hurry!

And turns her head back helplessly to watch the dead slam their heavy, rotting limbs into the oak. Smoke billows into the room, thick as the Mists, and just as deadly.

Move, move!

But she cannot.

Van Rijn steps between the zombies which are still caught up single-mindedly in destroying the barrier. He coughs, and raises a kerchief discreetly to his lips. It blossoms poppy-red and suddenly flutters to the floors, sprinkling blood drops upon the crystal shards, the scattered gleaming silverware.

Rupert!

Segue once more to van Rijn’s face. He smiles, his sickly complexion rendered ruddy by the flames which devour the paintings, the curtains, the walls themselves. Windows explode, and the dead moan, but it is van Rijn who holds her attention. Once he speaks, she’ll be able to move, to run, to fight. She wills him to speak- to taunt, to threaten, anything-

Come on old man, damn you!

But all he does, in that eternal moment, is smile, and then raise a hand. Her eyes are drawn to that hand, as the gaze of the frozen prey is to the serpent’s sway, the cat’s swooping paw…

No, oh by all the gods no-

And her eyes follow in fascination as the smoke surges forward, heralding its worst inhabitant-


She stares at Rupert, uncomprehending. A racking sigh, almost a sob, breaks the tension and she feels his arms about her, as if trying to shield her from the nightmare. It helps, but horror still lingers.

“I’m sorry,” she finally murmurs, slightly embarrassed but still dry-mouthed and shaking from the memories which come pouring in once more.

The blond strokes her back, her hair, lightly rocking back and forth. What is there to say? He reaches for his spectacles, holding her tightly for the moment till his vision clears. Her edges are defined once more in his sight, and he says very softly, “Nothing to be sorry about. I do wish you’d reconsider but…” He lets the sentence trail away.

Gertrude closes her eyes and leans into his chest. Smooth warm skin; the light tinge of sweat and his cologne, and a hint of tobacco. She smiles, and inhales deeply, and her shoulders begin to relax. She returns fully to the present, guided by the primeval sense of smell.

They’d argued all night about it; she hadn’t seen Rupert this angry in years. The argument had edged close into the territory of fight a couple of times, with a few exchanges of light fire when Rupert’s frustration had reached to certain verbal weapons. She’d quickly pulled back after these flares, reminding herself, Would you be any different if it were him instead of you? She was sorry; she didn’t want to scare or hurt him, let alone leave him helpless with the distance. But…

But she couldn’t hide in Paridon. She had research to do, and her departure wouldn’t invoke suspicion- she was still of no real rank in the Fraternity to be considered a threat. Staying behind- now that would invite unwanted attention. She had relayed the news of the disastrous meeting and the destruction of Le Manoir. She’d been proud of her involvement, but had said little about her own role in events. It was safer for everyone if she let them consider her nothing more than a hapless spectator and messenger. She didn’t need their begrudging approval, when she’d gained that of worthier men.

She was still annoyed that she hadn’t been able to do more physically or magically. But the professor was proud of her quick wits and ability to maintain her composure during times of crisis. She would offer them once more to the Fraternity, when they’d finally established their new headquarters and contacted her. But for now, it was time to resume her journey and studies. She was looking forward to Hartly’s correspondence, and was still contemplating a trip to Mordent. She was sorry that Crow seemed to have disappeared after the fire; she still hadn’t come across any of his articles. Rupert had promised to forward any that the Fraternity could come across.

She looks blearily at the clock. Four o’clock. May as well stay up… “Tea, darling?” she asks, kissing her husband’s shoulder, then cheek.

He lays a peck on her lips. “May as well.”
His only real danger is if stupidity is contagious and lethal. In which case, we’re all dead…-Gertrude
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Moral Machivelli
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Post by Moral Machivelli »

Buchvold relaxes over a chilled crystal glass of wine.

Ah, exquisite” He thinks to himself,

The Borcan illusionist surveys his surroundings with great pleasure. He was born amongst things of quality, and this little restaurant, the “Black Pearl” was a brilliant discovery.

“I must remember this place for meetings with my more… reputable clients” he notes in his head. Buchvold hears a sound next to him.

“Excuse me Sir?”

Buchvold turns to his valet, Zivon, who is standing at his side

“Yes? What is it?”

The valet coughs slightly

“Some letters from other branches of your ... organization, sir. And one or two letters from your clients”

Buchvold sighs. He dislikes dealing with clients by letter; he far prefers to deal with people face to face. It is always better to know who you are dealing with. But he needs the gold that he gains from such transactions. Besides, he needs to get the remaining business done. He has managed to get a perspective client to provide a ticket for a production of “From Hell” at an extremely good theatre.

Buchvold opens the letters individually, quickly drafting out responses. Once he reaches the last of them, he turns to Zivon.

“Get those written out and send them off officially as soon as possible. Use the usual agents for delivery”

“Yes sir.”

“Splendid”

Satisfied with that, Buchvold turns his attention to the Fraternity’s letters. Written on crisp expensive paper, with the fraternity seal used as a watermark. They all look important.

He addresses them each in turn. They all dealt with the same subjects. Their continued horror at the attack on the manoir, their support of him and his business, and their acceptance of the idea of bestowing additional privileges upon those whose names he had recommended.

Buchvold is pleased at the last. It will be extremely useful in the war still on the horizon, for the loyalists to posses as many privileges as possible and it was well worth the several powerful items that he had sent his friends, to secure their action in the matter.

The Borcan illusionist took a sip of the wine, as he reads the end of the last letter.

Then he drops the glass to the floor, out of sheer surprise.” No, it is Impossible” he screams to himself “Impossible

Buchvold brings his hand crashing down upon the table. In a frenzy, he skims through the other letters. There was no mistake. That one little paragraph, repeats in each letter…..

Damn Damn Damn!!!!” Screams out the enraged Borcan. Noticing the utter astonishment of the other patrons of the Black Pearl, he assumes a sheepish smile and struggles to keep his emotions under control, as he beats a hasty retreat towards his shop, his valet in hot pursuit

“Sir?” Zivon queries

“Nothing, nothing” Buchvold replies wearily “But cancel all my appointments for today” Zivon tries to utter something” All of them!” snaps the illusionist. “And ready the carriage. I will probably need to travel shortly.

The valet murmurs accent and rushes ahead, leaving Buchvold to think, as he paces along the cobblestone path to his shop

I’ve been made a fool of” he broods to himself “I’ve aided and abetted an enemy of the Fraternity without knowing it. I helped Van Rijin’s little spy to achieve his objective, whatever that maybe. Well, now I know my mistake, I’ll hunt the man down like a dog

The man’s thoughts descend into various methods of tracking down the traitor… and suddenly, the gleam of an idea seems to cross his face

“From Hell will have to wait.” He reflects “For now I will have to make do with a somewhat lesser playwright.”
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Rotipher of the FoS
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In a Crow's nest

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

The austere attic hideout was drafty, and its dry, ill-caulked timbers creaked unnervingly in the autumn evening’s chill. But it wasn’t either of these that made the sleeping bard’s limbs twist like a fever-victim’s on the cot, nor knotted his hands into clenched fistfuls of woolen blanket.

Let go, let go you bastards: she needs me! Let me go, let me stop it; just this once let me stop it in time! For once, let me be there for her, just this once….

Images swirled though the sleeping bard’s mind: subconscious dream-images no amnesia could stem and no dark power, save that of his own banished past, had birthed. Brooding blocks of tombs; boots sliding tractionless across flagstones whose solidity was lost. The wrong stones, the wrong place, the bastards had loosed him in the wrong damned place! Stained-glass sunrise; his own stumbling, screaming steps, charging heedless into a dawn that refused to shatter before him. But cut, the golden shards would cut if he willed it so, could cut deep enough to dig out what-little blood was left, sparse drops buried too deeply to be believed… no, that was later, that was after he’d come back to himself… after the tree’s grasp had snapped his ankle, after the crows, after he’d failed, after he’d SEEN….

Bolting upright upon the cot, his naked skin sweat-soaked, Crow’s hands flew to his brow and pressed palms to forehead with all the strength that dream-borne rage and horror had given his limbs. Shuddering from adrenaline and shock, the bard’s muscles tightened, as if to drive his curled fingers forcibly through his skin – through his skull – to squeeze the nightmare’s cruel lies and crueler truths physically from his mind. For some minutes, the sweat-drops that trickled down his back were the only movement about him: his muscles ceased shaking and tensed no further; his eyes neither opened nor winced their sealed lids tighter; his bare chest seemed not even to labor for breath.

The fugue passed as it always did; as it so often had, since he’d learned of the Doomsday Device’s resurrection. Such dire threats had brought his dreams on before – truths buried too well for amnesia to touch; events whose indelible imprint upon Crow went far beyond memories – but he’d learned to shut them out, to wipe them clean, to seal them beneath his conscious self’s awareness. The bard had no choice; stricken and unmanned by such visions, of past failures from a once-life he dared not recollect, he’d be useless to all the ones he did yet have a chance to shield from darkness.

Grief wasn’t a luxury he could afford, if his missions were to bear fruit. Confronting the past would mean forfeiting any hope he might offer present or future. Fortunately, years of surviving by deception and concealment had made the bard very, very good at such techniques.

(Sometimes, it wasn’t others’ minds that Crow’s work required him to deceive….)

Thirty minutes later, still damp from a hurried, chilling wash with jug and cloth, the bard-cum-VRS-spy’s black-curled head emerged from the collar of the nondescript laborer’s shirt he’d pinched from a clothesline a block away. (Granted, the nightshade he’d left in the pocket of the next item on the line could have bought him twenty such shirts, and legally at that, but Crow never left a discernable trail if he could possibly avoid it. Besides, his current target was well-known for his mercantile connections – on both sides of the law, no less – and even honest shop-keeps were seldom close-mouthed.) The bard patted the concealed pockets he’d crafted with a few strategic stitches to the anonymous garment, confirming that his burglar’s tools, spell components, and other equipment were secure, and grinned impishly at the reflection – his own, for a change; on such a brief excursion as this, magic alone ought to be equal to the task of masking his features – in the cracked makeup-mirror by the washbasin.

Nothing personal in this, my temperamental “Brother in Shadow”, Crow silently chided his night’s target. Your bloody warding-spell’s just proven to be a tad out of my depth, spellcraft-wise, that’s all! But don’t worry: I won’t rob you too badly, so long as your records tell me how to safely undo the rotten trick you’d played on that poor lad from Mordent. Well… maybe a little bit, but just enough to cover this outing’s expenses, mind you: it’s your blasted trap-spell on his contract, that’s made tonight’s venture necessary, after all.

Besides, you scoundrels owe me one for playing on your side, during that tiresome little insurrection of yours … not to mention leaving behind that Guide to the Walking Dead! So sit back and enjoy “From Hell”, you pompous blowhard: given that it’s the best box-seat in the theatre, it was a real bargain, when I scalped it so very cheaply to one of those overstuffed investors who eagerly pad your pockets. (It’s not as though you’d kept your fondness for the stage – or for bribes – much of a secret in this town, had you…?) Rest assured, any coins or trinkets you’ll miss upon returning from the performance will be serving a better cause than you’d ever see fit to apply them to … and if this “mysterious thief’s” visit gets you furious enough, that bull-headed temper of yours may just be the edge I need, to keep you from thinking too many moves ahead.

In which case, it’ll be more than your
money that may yet serve a useful cause in this Land, knowingly or otherwise.

Ready or not, here I come, Mr. Buchvold….
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Moral Machivelli
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Post by Moral Machivelli »

“Yes, Yes, Yes. That is an enormous improvement, Sef Ivan. It is a far more realistic line”

Buchvold fumes inwardly. Firstly he has just aided the opposite side in the Fraternity’s civil war; Secondly he has just made a fool of himself at an extremely good restaurant and Thirdly He has been forced to miss his chance to watch “From Hell” in the best seat in the house!!!

And atop all of that, he now has to try and tear that overly dramatic fop, Sef Ivan, away from shouting out improvements to a brilliant acting troop like a spoiled brat, in order to ask the man for the usage of the … “Militia” in order to track down that accursed traitor...

“Sef Ivan, if I might speak with you a moment…” Buchvold speaks in his most sycophantic manner, endeavouring to conceal his rage.

Ivan jumps down from the stage, making no effort to conceal his irritation.

"Very well. What is it that you want Raphael?” He inquires of the illusionist, sneering

Buchvold is seething now. How is it that this little fop :he inquires to himself :Dares to call my by my first name. Though he does his level best to conceal his anger, Ivan can see it clearly, and takes pleasure in the illusionist’s discomfort.

“If it pleases the Sef, I would request the aid of the militia, In order to hunt down a certain turncoat who has decided to act against my organization. I myself would compensate you for their time” Buchvold is at his most persuasive now, though not without an almost superhuman effort

"Hmm…" the Darklord starts laughing, for no easily apparent reason "Very well" He beckons to one of his nearby lackeys.

“Dispatch 10 militia men to accompany Mr Buchvold. They are to be placed under his command until the capture of the man he is perusing."

"The man goes by the name of…” Ivan turns to Buchvold

Crow was the name he went by when I saw him last, Sef”

"Very well then. The men are to be made ready to ride immediately"

Once more, the Sef Ivan turns to Buchvold

"But how can you find this spy’s location?” Asks the Sef

“Simplicity itself” Smiles Buchvold, pleased that he had at least one ace up his sleeve.

“When last I met him, the man managed to steal an arcane …item I had in my possession at the time.”

“What he was unaware of is that all items precious to me are enchanted, so as to radiate an almost invisible arcane energy. When I utter the correct activation command, near a device embedded in my desk, the aura will increase, to such a degree that I can trace it to its source. I can even use a less accurate tracking power via this very cane” He hols up his cane, with the silver head shaped as an owl

"Well, you seem to have planned this very well” Replies the Darklord. A look bordering on slight respect creeps on to his face "Why don’t you attempt your little trick now?”

“Certainly” replies the Illusionist. Buchvold begins a small chant, and a somewhat hazy map of the core is projected from the eyes of the owl. A small Red peice of parchment appears above Borca. To be precise, it appears above Leechburg, Buchvold’s hometown.

Ivan laughs loudly at Buchvold; much to the latter’s anger

“You appear to have been made a fool of, my ally in shadow” jests Ivan

Buchvold remains silent, save the uttering of a short incantation. He remains silent as the image disappears. He walks quickly towards the door, maintaining total silence, as the Darklord continues laughing at him.
Last edited by Moral Machivelli on Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Shiny things for a nest

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Well, that was a waste of a perfectly good unlocking-scroll, the bard fumed, and thumped the doorframe with a fist as he slipped into his hideout. He winced at the light from the attic’s lone gable window – one of these days, he’d have to talk someone into giving him a refresher-course for his faded lock-picking skills; even when they did activate on the first attempt, forcing himself through the cryptic, atonal recitations of wizard-specific scrolls always made his head ache – pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration and secured the door behind him. Well, all right, maybe I did stumble upon a thing or two of interest – not to mention paying for this outing, for whatever that’s worth – and maybe the wizard's correspondence was worth a peek or two ... but blast it, I’m still no closer to extricating Hawke from his predicament! Damn Buchvold and his profiteering, anyway: this “side-trek” on the ranger’s behalf is becoming too time-consuming, and I don’t have much time to waste, before the Solstice turns. Seven weeks surely wouldn’t be enough to construct the damnable engine from nothing… but who’s to say how much of the last one that unholy mad-thing’s been able to salvage, intact?

Timing was, as ever, a critical issue. Even tonight, Crow’s own had run dangerously tight – between the window’s recalcitrance and his own astonished distraction, upon viewing the Borcan illusionist’s incongruous range of possessions, he’d nearly exceeded his disguise-spell’s span – but he’d made it back to the vacant townhouse before his face or his burden were exposed. Had it not been late autumn, and getting on towards winter, the bard’s persuasive talents would've been hard-pressed to charm his way past the residence’s bustling household staff; as it was, the building’s leaseholder chose to dodge Lechberg’s highland snowfalls by wintering along the Luna River’s shoreline. There was, of course, a watchman assigned to the premises, but so long as Crow kept himself to the rear stairs and attic – and his off-the-record “landlord’s” tavern bill paid in full – the guard’s consideration for a “minor son of the nobility”, needful of a quiet place to practice music forbidden by a dictatorial and tone-deaf (also nonexistent) father, was charitable indeed. Even if it did mean Crow had to play “My Merry Musarde Rivermaid” – a gauche drinking-air the bard found as tasteless as unseasoned mamliga – every time he spoke to the man.

No worries on that account at least, Tiahn, the bard mused wryly, directing his thoughts and the Forfarian-sounding pet name to his unseen guitar, presently concealed among the stacked crates at that end of the attic to which he’d relegated the townhouse’s stored bric-a-brac. There’s no replacing you, my songbird … but at least you’ll not have to regale that old lech with such drivel, next time! Crow chuckled inwardly; who’d have thought a bellowing ogre of a snob like Buchvold would recognize such a rare piece as he’d liberated from the mage’s office, or indeed even know how to store it without damaging it…?

The bard shifted the “bundle of kindling” cord-slung across his back to the disheveled sleeping-cot – the disguise-spell’s effect wouldn’t last more than a minute or two longer, so actively dismissing the illusion would be a needless strain on Crow’s aching head – and retrieved the guitar from the old steamer trunk (one fastening, at least, his feeble lock-work skills had been up to cracking, on first moving into the Lechberg hideout) he’d left his dearest possession concealed within. Perfectly attuned, naturally – the bard could no more leave “Tiahn’s” strings ill-voiced than he could chew his own leg off – but he strummed an experimental chord or two anyway, purely for the pleasure of it, and for the ease the notes’ rich timbre granted his sore brow.

“Not just now, sweet bird”, Crow murmured regretfully. “And never in such company, either,” he added, glancing with renewed worry at the cot’s burden … the appearance of which shifted, even as he looked on, from a nondescript sheaf of firewood to the familiar shape of his forever-useful guitar case. Reluctantly as always, he propped the guitar against the writing-desk he’d saved out from the rest of the attic’s household detritus, whose sloped surface supported a veritable snowdrift of stolen or half-forged documents, Nathaniel’s as-yet-still-active contract, and his own copious shorthand notes. Not sparing a glance at the mounded paperwork – not that he would have spied anything amiss, with eyes unaided by detection-magic – the bard limped to the bedside and unlatched and opened the instrument-case, uttering an obscure Draconic command-word to access its dimensional pocket, in so-doing.

Especially not company of this sort, Crow thought, with a shuddering aversion. Hesitant even to touch the first of his foray’s recovered articles – even contact with the handgrip had set his skin crawling, for reasons more visceral than its mere mystic aura could perhaps account for – the bard slid the fabric of the work-shirt’s sleeve down over his hand, before lifting the wrought-silver dagger from the extradimensional void. Even if he hadn’t recognized its ornate hilt’s embossed thorn-motif or the infernal runework that marred its blade – and he had recognized these distinguishing features, from old tales of terror; though memories of his own past didn’t extend back far enough to tell him why, his amnesia’d not robbed him of his bardic reserves of folklore, and infamous or accursed daggers were one topic he’d evidently taken a particular interest in, for whatever morbid reason – the murderous implement’s imbued fiend-calling magic would have led him to the same conclusion, anyway: this was one enchanted item the world would be far, far better off, without.

But hideously-ensorcelled or not, the dagger was only silver – not the sturdiest of metals, as a Van Richten Society agent was better-placed to know than most – and its evil power was not so insurmountable as to require he entrust it to the Guardians’ vigilance. Hands still sheathed in his shirtsleeves, Crow frugally pried the midnight-violet gemstone from the dagger’s pommel – tales traditionally depicted this particular item’s capstone as poisonous green, not violet, so it was unlikely that the adorning gem played any part in its enchantment; if the latter checked out as inoffensive to his cantrips, once parted from its setting, the bard could pawn it to further fund his search for Van Rijn – and pitched the wicked blade into the brazier which heated his hideout. A variety of liquid and powdered substances, including two that he’d had to purchase from alchemists and a third which few outside the VRS would have known how to procure (the latter was normally used to swiftly heat a weapon against foes steel could not otherwise pierce, but the bard tripled the usual dose-per-application just to be sure), followed. The intense wave of heat that arose, when he set the brazier alight, told Crow the dagger’s metal wasn’t likely to hold up for long – certainly, such treatment served wereslayers like Weathermay well enough, for field-casting impromptu ammunition in a pinch – and the bard expended one of the few truly potent spells he felt he had left within him, to diminish the malevolent weapon’s innate energies as best he was able, in hopes its momentary lapse in power might ease the flames’ purifying handiwork.

Not till the diabolical dagger’s metal had been reduced to a shallow pool of burnished liquid at the bottom of the brazier did the bard allow himself to relax. Guess that’s one worthy task I’ve achieved for the night, anyway, Crow quipped to himself. Even if this business is running me out of supplies faster than I ever expected … bloody Fraternity schemers! I should never have been surprised they’d keep those ghastly plans, intact; men who’d retain the likes of that blade around, merely for its market-value, don’t deserve the privilege of my better expectations. Maybe Buchvold’s not the one I should be playing off, bull-brained temper or not! Too late to change now, though: like it or not, he’s my best shot at getting back inside, to pick up the plans’ trail again.

Damn Buchvold? Rather, damn Van Rijn… and damn me, too, for not seizing something more tangible – like those bloodied handkerchiefs of his – to trace him by, when I had the chance! Wretched, whining lich-in-training made a fool of me, even as I was caught up in fooling the Brotherhood. Have to make a note of that: don’t ever get cocky, even when you think you’ve more than earned it.

Hmmm. Wonder how long a phylactery would hold up, under the “brazier treatment”?

The bard shook his head, to dispel the distracting (and highly satisfying; despite all his years of undercover work for the VRS, he’d never been personally responsible for a lich’s total dissolution) image, and covered the brazier so its flames – their noble task, now complete – wouldn’t smoke him out of his own hideout. Dismissing the transmuter-lich’s mockery from his thoughts with a final throwing-away gesture, Crow retrieved the violet gemstone – its monetary value unknown; he wasn’t a fence, like Buchvold, to rightly evaluate such baubles – and plucked a brief one-handed riff in the air, softly intoning the corresponding lyric as he did so. The bard’s eyes unfocused, blurring the gem he held before them, then regained their clarity of sight with a more-penetrating edge: mystic auras, such as he’d used this same spell to pinpoint in Buchvold’s office, would now be discernable to him. Yet the gemstone’s faceted veneer appeared no different. Proof enough, that it was merely decorative rather than a part of the destroyed dagger’s evil; he could sell it with a clear conscience now.

Maintaining his mental focus, to retain the spell-sensing cantrip’s services a little longer, Crow turned back to the guitar-case – shimmering and multicolored with enchantments, to his divinatory vision; no matter, he’d seen its custom-crafted magics, thusly, countless times before – and collected a far more delightful prize the night’s burglary had won him. No substitute for Tiahn, for no instrument ever crafted could usurp the guitar’s place in Crow’s heart … but this one was special, and well deserving of a finer custodian than Mr. Raphael Buchvold! As always with an unfamiliar musical instrument, the bard examined the balalaika with his hands and his ears far more than with his eyes – felt the rich wood’s oiled surface; tapped the sound-box, listening, to test its resonating properties; checked how easily each string’s tautness gave under his fingertips’ pressure to meet the fretboard – and what his varied senses told him was pleasing, indeed. A "prize"...? This was a treasure, befitting a maestro’s hands or a reigning meistersinger’s First Accompanist! And to think, that ignorant clod of a banker had merely hung it over his fireplace!

No wasted evening after all, Prastona, if it’s spared you from ignominy, Crow cooed gently in his thoughts to the rescued instrument. (The name came naturally, for he didn’t need to check the balalaika’s provenance to recognize it for a Naiat masterpiece, and one worthy to lead the music, just as a dancer might.) The brimming arcane enhancements his enspelled sight discerned within the instrument meant little – it would’ve easily been worth liberating, for its quality alone – though it did, perhaps, explain why an insensitive boor like Buchvold had clung to such a marvel. A musician more cavalier in his loyalties might have gravitated to such a piece as a new favorite; as for Crow, the balalaika was a joy and a privilege to handle, and it might, if need be, serve his own mission for a short time, via its formidable innate magics … but he knew he couldn’t possibly keep it.

You deserve a better caretaker than I, also, pretty lady, the bard wistfully apologized to the delicate instrument. One who’ll sound your voice every day, not just when his heart’s not heavy with bitterness; one who’ll not drag you into circumstances when your beauty becomes just another tool, borne for pragmatism’s sake. But don’t fear; I’m spoken for already, anyway – Tiahn for my soul, and lesser instruments whose loss to violence wouldn’t so-greatly deprive the world, for my work – and I’ll find a bearer equal to your excellence, before I pass you on.

“Still,” the bard suddenly quipped with a mischievious grin, as he let his detection-spell expire and shot a fond glance over his shoulder toward the writing-desk. “Tiahn’s never been that much the jealous type! And it has been a while since I reviewed three-string finger placements; it wouldn’t do to let old skills go unexercised too long….”

And with that, Crow pushed aside his cares for the nonce. He sat down on the cot, drew the exquisite balalaika near, and struck up a tune: one which, if his estimate of time’s passage since Lechberg’s clock-tower had last sounded was accurate, Raphael Buchvold might well be listening to, at that very moment, as tonight’s theatrical performance of “From Hell” drew to its climax. Cesar Vercezzo’s works weren’t the bard’s personal choice of entertainment for an evening – to a man as well-traveled as Crow, the lauded playwright’s characterization of foreigners seemed not merely shallow, but exaggerated to the brink of unintended farce; besides, the climactic confrontation with the Fiend-Prince in Act VI, Scene 3, was so obviously lifted in its entirety from The Beast Of Ehrendton, it amazed the bard that the Ironhand family had yet to press their case in the courts – but he had to admit, the local composer’s actual music could be enthralling.

Thus captivated, in experiencing and exploring all that the marvelous balalaika’s compass had to offer, the bard never spared a moment’s thought for the contract – which lay, forgotten for the time being, on the writing-desk against which his precious guitar now rested – nor suspected he’d dismissed his divination’s effects an instant too hastily. Had his cantrip-enhanced vision only fallen across the document a bit sooner, Crow might well have spotted how its arcane aura had abruptly changed – had grown far more intense, during his own absence – or how that rise in its intensity did not hold steady, but pulsed with a slow, unwavering, beckoning rhythm.

The bard was a champion, when it came to taking notes: endless piles of shorthand notes on his targets’ strengths and weaknesses, on strategies and tactics, on hard-proven facts and speculative possibilities. Notes regarding places, or people, or things; notes about what he could do, or should do, or would do in the wildly-unlikely event he ever managed to find the time. Even notes on things – like lowering his guard out of cockiness, just because he’d achieved one success and allowed the satisfaction of that victory to distract him – which Crow absolutely, positively, MUST NOT ever do again.

(Perhaps one of these days, he’d actually get around to reading notes like that…..)
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Moral Machivelli
Rat Blinder
Rat Blinder
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Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2005 3:54 pm
Location: Not Here...

The chase draws to a close...

Post by Moral Machivelli »

It was snowing on the streets of Leechburg. Despite the day drawing to twilight, small children played on the streets, for what remained of the daylight hours. The paths, shops and homes were all covered in a slight degree of snow. All in all, many people would consider it a beautiful scene, one vastly out of place in the realms of dread; even in spite of the black cloaked nobleman, and his band of toughs.

Raphael Buchvold is far to busy to notice the picturesque image, as he strides through the cobblestone streets, whilst the ten militia men, who wear the standard chain mail chain mail, trail after the black cloaked illusionist, like dogs upon a lead. His mind is far too busy with other thoughts. Many of them are ideas for highly violent ways to extract information from the man known as Crow. However, Buchvold has learned several things in recent days. Amongst them is the ability to keep his anger in its rightful place, as a tool of its true master: Rational thought.

It is amazing how Mr. Crow managed to infiltration the Fraternity so easily Buchvold ponders to himself And how precisely did he expect to maintain the façade. Van Rijin, or for that mater, any of there traitors to the Fraternity could have helped make a better cover story for the man. Why didn’t they?

Buchvold leaves this question unanswered as he opens the elegantly engraved oaken doorway into his shop. Buchvold strides behind the expensive marble desk, through the door into his own personal office. He stops dead in his tracks. His valet Zivon rushes up behind him

“Mr. Buchvold, Sir? There’s been a burglary”
“I can see that Zivon!” the illusionist snaps “By the watchers... How did they get past the wards?”
“I am uncertain sir; the direct nexus has been neutralized.”
“And the passive one?”
“I have not yet had the time to check it sir.”
“ Then check the blasted thing !!!!!” The valet coughs politely, and withdraws,

Let us hope our little intruder did not notice the passive nexus thinks Buchvold. If he did not spot the extremely subtle flow of magic it gives off……
The Borcan Illusionist surveys the room whilst struggling to contain his anger. The room has not been completely ransacked. It has not been turned upside down. In fact, many people would doubt there had been a burglary at all.

But their were indicators. Several items were missing. Buchvold’s correspondence had been moved a few centimetres to the right. Not enough for a random stranger to spot but someone who uses the room often would notice with ease.

Buchvold strides to the right hand side of the room, towards an elegantly carved obsidian statue of an owl with two dark sapphire eyes. If a casual bystander looked at it, they would judge it to be a merely grandiose ornament. If a magician saw it through a magical detection spell, they would find it to bear no magical enchantment what so ever.

They would both be wrong.

I really must remember to thank Lord Balfour for this device Buchvold reminds himself. It has proven itself most useful. The Illusionist allows a smile to cross his face as he taps the right hand sapphire with the tip of his cane, and recites the command words de Castelle used.

“Ex umbra lumen eruditionis prodentes” Intones the wizard

The sapphires set in the owl’s eye sockets light up... And a red haired man steps through the door.

The illusion is extremely realistic. If you didn’t know any better, you would swear that a red haired young man, wearing the clothes of a labourer had just walked in the door, as he had, earlier that day.

Buchvold watches the illusion of the man with interest. Not a local He decides. I know most of the thieves in this town, and I don’t know him. Interesting…

Surprising Buchvold notes the man seems able to determine mystic auras. Thank Ezra I masked the aura of de Castelle’s device , or else he may very well have disabled it

What?? That looks a little like an arcane gesture… but it’s highly unorthodox. I can’t see how it would work. It shouldn’t work…

Now what’s he doing… By Ezra!

“Envocaris Epsom”

********************************************************************************

Zivon hears the sound of magic missiles from Buchvold's office
Oh dear, he thinks Mr Buchvold really is angry. I'd hate to be that Crow person...
Having completed his inspection of the nexus, the valet turns and walks back into Buchvold's office to relay his findings.
Unfortunately, Buchvold is not there. All that is there are the marks of several mystic projectiles, and a small scale illusion of the town, with the Draconic runes for "contract" over a certain building.
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Rotipher of the FoS
Thieving Crow
Thieving Crow
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Borcan & Bard #1 -- Fleeing the nest

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Lechberg, Borca; Last night of November

After the fact, of course, Crow would’ve unhesitatingly claimed he’d been awaiting the interruption with bated breath, his pursuer’s every action long-anticipated and thoroughly prepared for. Few tenets of intrigue were more crucial, in the bard’s experience, than that of controlling how much an opponent believes you suspect; while playing the irreverent wag as per his usual persona carried significant tactical advantages, in the final analysis it was never amiss to leave one’s bested opposites convinced you had known – indeed, that you’d been counting upon – their “secret” stratagems, all along.

(In truth, when he heard the first, brutal impact on the townhouse’s front door, Crow was so absorbed in exploring the exquisite balalaika’s potential, his immediate impulse was to yell for his “landlord” to keep that gods-awful racket down: he was practicing!)

Blast and damnation, that’s no inebriated crony of the watchman’s calling!, the bard gasped in shock, when the initial thuds from the ground-floor entryway were joined by a harsh splintering of rosewood-paneled oak. Either the old man’s debts were more serious than he’d implied, or Buchvold skipped the last act at the Sommet tonight. I thought his security ran a little light, for a dealer in gray-market mystic wares…

… and I’ve just spent days trying to aggravate the blighter, too. Crow-my-lad, seems you might’ve been a little too successful in that endeavor: time for this blackbird to fly!

Even as his thoughts ran, thus, the bard shot into action. Long fingers fluttering chords as an incantatory libretto sprang to his lips, he darted to the attic’s door, peered outward and downward, then gestured at the stairs below. Dimly visible in the ill-lit stairwell, a thin strand of wire slithered across the second-story landing, passed through an eye-hook he’d discreetly bolted to the landing’s door, then looped over a low peg he’d likewise installed on the wall opposite. Splintering sounds of the townhouse’s grand entrance succumbing to physical attack redounded up the steps from ground level. The artiste in Crow winced, sorely hoping the craftsman who’d executed its fine inlay-work would never lay eyes on the flinders that lovingly-constructed door was being reduced to.

Ducking back into the attic, the bard gesticulated broadly to the writing-desk and guitar-case, then set to securing his hideout’s main entrance. Behind him, scattered stacks of paper burst into flight, telekinetic fistfuls as a time. Scribbled shorthand notes on current or prospective missions … obtuse transcriptions of his improvised arcane techniques, half mystic sigil-script and half musical notation … tidbits of legendry and song from half-a-hundred cultures, Core-bound or beyond, that’d chanced to spark his interest: all of them flocked, helter-skelter, into the unplumbed depths of the VRS spy’s instrument-case. A glint of gold-foil trimming flashed in the candlelight – the Mordentish ranger’s contract, peeling off from where it nestled between a list of hypothetical Unholy Order repulsion-allergens and the bard’s own translation of a peculiar ballad about an inescapable inn on a benighted wasteland high road (dashed if Crow recalled where the bewildered outlander who’d sung it to him claimed to come from, but the inn’s name sounded vaguely Elvish to the bard) – and darted into his outstretched hand. Distracted, Crow unthinkingly tried to stuff the page into the work-shirt’s absent breast pocket, realized his error, smacked himself in the forehead.

DOUBLE damnation, I’ve no makeup on, either! If it is bloody Buchvold out there, I’m not ready to play this out here and now. Even if I can steer the braggart under such circumstances, he’s bound to strip a masking-spell to see what I really look like…

… or at least, he’ll see what he thinks I look like. Wizards’ arts are over-structured; key-shifting isn’t something he’s likely to recognize … and I doubt he’s ever heard of the Bouki-tales – far too ‘bourgeois’ for an opera-buff, even if he wasn’t in the snootier-than-thou FoS – despite what his mail had to say about Souragne…

His devious mind already scheming well ahead of his immediate environs, the bard knelt to lash down the trapdoor constituting the attic’s other visible means of access. Vibrations traveling up his knees from the floorboards verified what his keen ears told him, that the intruders – At least four and probably more, blast it; too many to collect a few hemlocks from a lone drunkard, no matter how chronically indebted – were now bulling their way through the residence’s ground floor. The dearth of human protest at their intrusion came as something of a relief. Clearly, this time his “landlord” owed his barkeep his life as well as his coinage, if alcohol had coaxed him safely off the premises tonight: even sober, the elderly watchman would’ve stood no chance against so many.

Mind you, Ilyano and Vhexus may rate somewhat better odds. I wouldn’t think men in such haste to batter down thick oaken doors, when breaking windows is so much faster, are likely to have brought any bacon tidbits along! Sic ‘em, boys…

Indeed, Crow’d barely risen from his crouch when the first startled shriek of human pain, and booming, bass rumble of territorial challenge, echoed up from the floors below. The methodical boot-stomps and smashing of furniture which had heralded the trespassers’ search gave way to running steps and commands to regroup, bellowed in locally-accented Balok. Crow couldn’t repress a brief, wry grin: while the watchdogs’ dutifulness might well spell the animals’ demise, to confront so many intruders at once, the poetic justice inherent in Mordentish mastiffs – loyal unto death, trained to curtail their powerful barks until trespassers crept near enough to ambush, and very, very large – buying him needed time to flee, and thus continue his effort to assist one of Mordent’s human native sons, hadn’t escaped his notice! The dogs were another component of the household that hadn’t been invited to the residents’ winter estate; while they’d welcomed the bard with a cordial (if slobbery) affection on the watchmen’s say-so, the ruffians below had received no such formal introduction.

Don’t get killed if you can help it, big fellahs, the bard mentally cautioned the dogs, as yet another invader’s wail of bite-borne distress cut through the townhouse. Or, if you can’t help it, at least hold them back until I’ve gotten clear: there’s more than one good man’s life at stake in this! The lack of gunshots or bowstring-twangs from the fracas below was encouraging – it suggested the intruders were indeed mere thugs, not trained mercenary soldiers or, worse yet, hired adventurers; granted, the distinction between militiaman and street-thug could be marginal in Borca – and their dearth of missiles would give the mastiffs a fighting chance, to buy Crow time to conceal his true line of work before departing.

The telekinetic paper-storm having vanished into the guitar-case’s depths, the bard turned his attention to the physical tools of his trade… both his trades, rather. First things first, naturally: he slid his precious Tiahn’s decorated body into its velvet-lined slipcover – the mage who’d enchanted the guitar’s protective case had repeatedly assured him that items secreted within couldn’t collide with or damage one another… but this was his Tiahn, for sun’s sake! – and gently lowered his fondest possession into the dimensional cavity. Behind him, far-more-expendable items tumbled freely in the air, gathered by his cantrips from all corners of Crow’s hideout: makeup pots and brushes, spools of wire and catgut, sealed alchemical packets, lumps of rosin and bottles of polish, easily-concealed tools of varied function. Most were purely mundane – magical trickery, however-expedient, was prone to disruption and to resistance by the strong-willed; conversely, the bard had yet to see an antagonist, however-cagey, “disbelieve” a discreet layer of cosmetics out of existence! – though some of the labeled vials (like a few of the documents that preceded them into the guitar-case) could be accounted exceptions.

Snatching up what might well be the oddest-looking “toolbox” in the Land of Mists, and flipping it padded-side down, the bard gestured the articles hovering about him into their designated cubbyholes, manually latching each item securely into its compartment. (Not even Vechorian balsa had been light enough to construct an equipment-caddy his Magic Hand could lift, but at least the spell’s assistance made it quicker to load.) Downstairs, the scuffle with the intruders was audibly turning against the mastiffs. As Crow locked down the last cubby’s lid, hefted the “toolbox” – custom-crafted to fit the hourglass shape of the guitar-case, itself – and slipped it into the dimensional pocket with scarcely a hair’s breadth to spare, one dog (Vhexus?) let out an incongruously-tenor yelp of pain, and the other’s barks (Ilyano’s?) grew far more frantic, with the rapid-fire cadence of fright. The trespassers’ rude fighting-curses grew in volume, confidence, and enthusiasm.

Hang in there, boys, just a little longer!

Tiahn’s cloth-sheathed body shielded by papers below and the thick under-padding of the toolbox above – I know, I know he said it’s safe to store her as-is; I just don’t believe it! – the bard could now gather up items too bulky for cantrips to manipulate. Three backup disguise-kits (and even so, Crow was constantly running low on Soft Tan #7); one of his least-expensive harmonicas in its leather belt-sheath; the lined box housing spare blades for his retractable knives, sorted by type of metal; the deluxe guitar-care kit for Tiahn; a much-leafed copy of the Guide To The Walking Dead – his own, of course, Reuland’s text having been forfeited weeks ago to decoy Buchvold and Chateaufaux; the stolen copies of the others weren’t presently in Borca, and the priceless annotations had been hidden in an obscure realmlet even the FoS wasn’t likely to have heard of – collectively packed the instrument-case’s spatial rift to its brim. Crow’s command-word resealed its dimensional cavity, and the balalaika – no Tiahn, but nothing to abandon to the mercy of barbarians, either – he fitted snugly into the now-tangible velvet interior of the case.

Another anguished yelp, choked off abruptly, and gruff orders barked with a force equal to the mastiffs’ now-stilled voices, warned the bard his time was running out. With a muttered curse – vital though re-engaging with the Fraternity of Shadows might be, he resented how these concomitant anti-scrying precautions were depleting his wardrobe – he yanked the “lesser nobility” clothing he’d worn prior to the burglary from the attic’s battered clothes-tree. That’s another suit I’d liked, lost! Bloody vipers and their dratted divinations: for all their elitist contempt for mundane working-men, they’ve surely done their utmost to make my tailor wealthy!

The bard’s jest fell flat, its idle humor muffled by another yelp of canine pain … not the righteous indignation of a virile guardian defending its home, but the whimpered whine of a dumb beast, disabled by its wounds and baffled that it should be kicked for its valor. Sorry, big fellow, Crow sheepishly apologized for his cheek. He’d never meant to bring such danger to his “landlord’s” door; however low his opinion of their handler, he’d had a certain fondness for the huge canines’ unfeigned affability. You boys did well. Have to make a note to lay a ghost-hound to rest, next time I’m passing through Mordent.

Movements by the intruders were easier to pinpoint now – cussed and herded by the same deep-voiced, roaring brute who’d likely kicked the dying watchdog, to judge by the laughter which accompanied its cry – as they resumed their search of the townhouse. It didn’t take long, once the mastiffs were bested, for their rampage to reach the back stairs. If they’d been werebeasts or minor undead, even vampire-spawn too new-Risen to think to invade in mist-form, their rapid progress wouldn’t have worried the bard so greatly: that’s what he’d intended the auto-trap’s design modifications to hamper, after all. But merely smelling the fan-scattered admixture of garlic, aconite, camphor, and other herbal monster-repellants wouldn’t delay human foes, nor could the atomizers’ spraying of holy water impede the passage of mortal men.

The black pepper and fiendfire-grade Rajian hot curry powder, however…

Right on cue, when the second-floor door was shouldered open by the intruders, the cloud of irritants that spewed down the stairs from the spinning platter’s fans sent the first men on the stairway into a fit of sneezing and eye-wringing near-blindness. Curious as to the modified tripwire-alarm’s effectiveness, Crow craned his neck from his clothes-gathering chore to the attic doorway, listening for the results of the auto-trap he’d set a half-dozen steps above the landing. The prototype’s reliability had declined a bit since he’d replaced most of its springs with strips of rubber; indeed, the clockmaker who’d turned the bard’s concept into tangible machinery had clearly thought him mad to do so … especially when he added the acid-capsules that would destroy the strips, within seconds of activation. But the last thing the bard wanted to do was introduce yet another poison-dispersing tool to Borca; bad enough, that the twins had gone and published that description of dragon-packs against his advice, a few years back! Costly though it would be to replace, the dust-dispersing auto-trap would leave only a cryptic metal husk and caustic residue for salvage. Luckily, the dissolving rubber’s elasticity seemed to have lasted long enough for the gadget to do its duty, this time around.

Counting off the various sneezers, below – at least four voices now, plus their presumptive leader’s bawlings from the second floor, demanding that his bumbling subordinates get their toothless arses (unpleasant image, that; my, how classical Borjian turns-of-phrase have declined, since the Vacancy!) out of his way – the bard finished piling the remainder of his wardrobe on the cot, together with his sweat-stained blanket, a ragged towel from the washstand, and a few other odds and ends he'd handled too often in his last few days’ residency. He shoved the laden cot on top of the trapdoor – no need to make things easy for his pursuers this soon … or to burn down the house by leaving the cot too close to the wall, for that matter – and dumped the brazier’s contents over the rumpled pile of fabric: ash, still-smoldering embers, molten silver, and all. The flames caught instantly, perhaps aided by alchemical deposits left over from the malign dagger’s disposal. Only the spy’s sharp eyes and quick reflexes let him save the well-thumbed book he’d overlooked, half-hidden beneath his rolled-rug pillow, from combusting alongside these possible psychic links to himself. Whoops, don’t want to lose this one, certainly not now of all times...!

Too pressed to bother reactivating the guitar-case’s already-burgeoning dimensional void, Crow stuffed the book under the balalaika’s fretboard, then latched the case and slung it across his back, hitching the shoulder-strap tighter to draw it snug against his body. Now was no time to let it swing freely, and risk snagging on something. Darting to the “storage cupboard” under the eaves – the real reason he’d chosen this particular address for a hideout, that George Weathermay’s recounting of a werebat-hunt some two decades ago had revealed in passing; and proof positive that Borcan architects were nothing if not consistent – the bard intoned the lyrics and mimed the finger-placements that had cloaked his appearance during the burglary … actions which, this time around, precisely recreated the semblance his makeup skills had painstakingly crafted, for the Fraternity’s gathering of the previous month.

One guise in place; up to three more to go, Crow mused, as he tilted the molding-strip lever of the “storage cupboard” that led to the open dumbwaiter-shaft, and from there to the werebat’s secret exit, fifteen feet below. Sun’s blood, but that had better be enough! If it isn’t…if those militia-thugs can identify me… For an instant, the VRS spy’s resolve wavered – veteran intriguer or not, he was quite human, and he knew what awaited him below – as he fought off the temptation to abandon his scheme, dig an escape-scroll out of the instrument-case, and flee Buchvold’s wrath with the untraceable, supernatural speed only Ceatsã’s Mist-conjured, fog-silent hooves could equal.

And how will you live with yourself, once another city lies Slain? Buck up and be quick about it, fool; there are far worse things than thugs’ fists in this world – you’ve seen too many of them for yourself, to deny that truth – and your own petty pain is the least of the ills that should merit your concern, right now.

(And besides… no matter what they might do to you… you know it’s far less than what your own forgotten offense deserves.)

The bard’s hesitancy was interrupted by the smashing of the attic door’s deadbolt from its fixture. Casting off his moment of weakness with a throwing-away gesture, Crow turned back to the entrance, where a beefy hand stretched through the slim gap where the door now hung slightly ajar, and probed blindly for the sliding chain that held door to doorframe. A futile effort – the telescoping poles which the bard had locked vertically into brackets at floor and ceiling would firmly block the door’s swing, if it opened so much as another half-inch; the chain, a laughable precaution to any thief, was merely another delaying tactic – but with no upper landing at the top of the stairwell, this would-be invader of his sanctuary couldn’t build up sufficient speed to smash through by main force. Had this particular man’s gruff voice not matched that of the dog-kicking brute who led the trespassers, Crow wouldn’t have bothered; as it was, payback for the mastiffs’ slaughter demanded a moment of his attention: he’d rather liked those dogs.

With a calculating dispassion that would’ve shocked his colleagues in the VRS – the bard had more than one cause for keeping the precise details of his missions from his Society; respect their good intentions and expertise though he did, many of his correspondents were so quaintly-ingenuous as to mistake merely dirty tricks for genuinely evil ones – he hefted a relict Dorvinian-era crossbow from the crate it’d doubtless been gathering dust in, ever since the Citizen Armament decrees that followed the Gold Claw Massacre. Antiquated piece of rubbish, this; and Borcans wonder why Drakov licks his chops in their direction, ever time his treasury’s coffers need topping off! Stepping up to the door, and taking all due care to spare the brute his tendons – cruelty to animals aside, even such a thug might conceivably harbor musical talent – Crow unflinchingly pulled the crossbow’s trigger and stapled the hand to the doorframe. The bolt-pinned ruffian’s howl brought the bard no pleasure – physical cruelty for any purpose was alien to his nature, a sport only to cads who sought empowerment in dominating the helpless – but picturing the humiliation the brute would endure, as his oft-denigrated followers worked to extricate him from this embarrassing predicament (no doubt, taunting and extorting apologies from their “leader” all the while; with one hand pinned and the other ill-positioned to reach the bolt, through the wrist-slim gap the door’s chain allowed, their chieftain was hardly equipped to retaliate) gave him no small satisfaction.

Pausing to check that the crossbow bolt hadn’t severed any arteries – punishing the thug in equal measure to his cruelty was justifiable, but letting him bleed to death for kicking a dog was going too far – Crow verified the wound wasn’t life-threatening. Noticing the trapped hand’s fingernails showed a distinct pattern of white bands, he also snapped the fletching-vanes from the bolt’s end, ensuring it wouldn’t be salvaged and handled by would-be archers unfamiliar with blood-borne (hence, blood-transferable) poisons. And to think, I’d assumed that overgrown brat had given up on such conventional toxins, years ago! I do hope Buchvold’s had the sense not to accept any of Dilisnya’s wretched “vintages”; it’ll be ghastly if I’ve gone to all this trouble, merely to gull an antidote-addicted dead man walking! (The bard was the last man to judge anyone’s character by ancestry, alone; nevertheless, the visceral urge to spit, on recollecting the effete Sef’s ill-famed surname, was nearly as difficult for him to suppress as were his occasional, hard-quelled impulses to genuflect the sun’s rising.)

Hearing the brute’s too-fervent (and subtly terrified; no doubt, the bolt’s captive could smell the smoke from the blazing cot) demands that his followers find another way into the attic, Crow pushed thoughts of extortionate poisoners aside – Not my problem; I’ve got fouler foes to thwart just now – and stomped the floor several times by the trapdoor, to draw the other thugs to the entrance’s location. (His packing-up complete, there was no further need to forestall their invasion of his erstwhile hideout; besides, he didn’t want them to dawdle so long that the dog-kicker might really burn to death.) The bard loudly belted out a few nonsense-syllables to the tune of “My Merry Musarde Rivermaid” – not a spell, but with any luck, his disappearance from a seemingly-locked room would be taken for magic by the ignorant ruffians; besides, reminding himself he’d never have to play that wretched song again helped boost his spirits for the ordeal to come – and swung himself into the hidden, vertical escape-passage he’d first seen diagrammed in one of Weathermay’s journals, sealing the panel imperceptibly behind him. The shallow notches the lycanthrope had employed to traverse the dumbwaiter’s shaft worked just as well, for a human descending feet-first – werebats were disgusting creatures, even by dubious comparison with other werebeasts, but at least they favored aeries over most phenotypes’ burrows; Crow shuddered to think what the dampness of a cellar might do to poor Tiahn’s timbre – and the hidden exit the flying monster had utilized for takeoffs, some twelve feet above ground level, would pose no challenge to the bard’s agility.

Just one more spell, to make this look good, the spy mused, anxiously drawing his guitar-case still tighter against his back, and then I’m in the thick of it. C’mon, you’ve been through worse, and more than once; you can do this, just remember that they’re cowards, and they can’t touch you. The bard repeated this to himself, as he crouched at the bottom of the escape-shaft and undid the latch of the exit’s camouflaged panel. As a chill breeze rushed into the shaft from outside, Crow heard the drop-down steps collapsing under the weight of the ruffians inside … steps, which they’d evidently not stopped to examine, after pulling the cord to lower them from the ceiling. Neither the bard nor his “landlord” ever used the trapdoor to access the attic, so removing the pegs that held those stairs’ individual steps in place had been no trouble at all.

Bracing himself for the drop, Crow sorely hoped the men inside had learned their lesson, and wouldn’t fling open the trapdoor quite so heedlessly as they’d run up the stairs. He honestly wasn’t sure how long the fabric-piled cot would take, to burn itself out…
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Rotipher of the FoS
Thieving Crow
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Borcan & Bard #2 -- A crow gets winged

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Wish me luck, ladies!, the bard quipped to the instruments in his case, falling back into facetiousness to break the tension of the moment. He hummed and mimed a few bars of von Straus’s “Flight of the Ravens” – not technically correct, from either an arcane or ornithological standpoint, but technical precision mattered far less in bardic spellcasting than emotive intensity, and few composers’ works were so richly-expressive as Straus; besides, musical pieces about crows were frustratingly scarce, in the spy’s experience – to invoke his second illusion in as many minutes, shoved the panel open … and jumped.

One bard dropped from the escape-shaft’s exit, slim frame twisting lithely in its descent, to ensure he’d bear the greater brunt of impact on his good ankle.

Seven bards landed, crouched, peered into the dimness.

Night fell quickly in this part of the city, in the shadow of Lechberg’s central tor, and the darkness on the townhouse’s dawn-facing side proved as sheltering to Crow’s getaway as it once had, to the werebat’s predatory forays. Taking in his surroundings in haste – Six at once, is it? Not bad! – and finding himself alone, save for the illusory duplicates that fanned out along his flanks, the bemused bard realized he could probably walk away from this place, unnoticed, were he so inclined: however-many of Dilisnya’s thugs-for-hire had been stationed to watch the building’s front and rear exits, this side of the house appeared unguarded. Again, a self-preservative impulse to abandon this particular plan struck him; again, he drove it down with the indisputable fact he couldn’t bear the weight of so many innocent deaths – so many more, rather – on his conscience.

Briefly flexing his weak ankle, to limber it up as best he could, and letting an equally brief, self-deprecating smile flit across his spell-masked features – for he’d just this moment realized he’d left his forgery kit in the hideout (Dash it all, there’s always something!) – the bard and his six spell-twinned “escorts” began to run, with the harried paces, furtive stances, and over-the-shoulder-glances of fugitives. The sounds and steps of his “escorts” closely mimicked his own, their feet “crunching” like his on what might have been dead leaves. Running, toward the back of the townhouse.

It was his only real option. Backing out now would only give the Borcan illusionist time – time to plan, to tame his fury, to think – and the bard couldn’t afford to let that happen. Ready or not, he’d have to play the hand fate had dealt him. Which, given that he’d be improvising, meant playing to his own strengths.

Let’s see how many of my lies I’ll need to let you spot, shall we, “Brother-in-Shadow”? And how much of a Borcan … or a merchant … or a fence, for that matter … you really are, beneath that self-satisfied facade.

And at that, with his six matching decoys ducking, weaving, and dodging all around him, the bard dashed out into plain view of the townhouse’s lantern-lit back entryway. As expected, his appearance roused an instant ruckus – multiple voices expressing surprise and anger, the latter emotion suggesting someone inside the house must’ve reported the difficulties encountered by the intruders – and a pounding (no, crunching) of footfalls behind him. Not glancing back, Crow launched into a series of ducks, jerks, dodges and rolls – the cold wetness beneath his palms, unnoticed as he flipped through the interweaving crowd of his copies; vigorous acrobatics were hard work, and they demanded too much attention for such extraneous observation – counting upon his and his duplicates’ maneuvers to foil any gun- or crossbow-fire on the part of his pursuers. The “escorts” were flimsy things, shattered by the least of blows, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t benefit from emulating his nimbleness.

Never mind the lookouts’ attacks, the copies should absorb any lucky shots; the kind of firepower I’m waiting for is the kind that can’t miss.

(Waiting for it, yes. Waiting for it all to strike him, rather than his duplicates – and on his dratted bad ankle, no less! – most certainly not!)

Knocked sprawling by a fivefold onslaught of arcane force-missiles – missiles, that drove themselves into his weakened limb just as he’d begun to set weight upon it; force, that stung his flesh with energies that roused a subconscious dread far out of proportion to the extent of the damage (fear, perhaps, of whatever amnesia-erased foe had lamed him in the first place?) – the bard stumbled, then went down face-first. He slammed his forearms into the ground as he landed, to reduce the fall’s impact on his vitals – yet another acrobat’s trick; Crow wished he could recall who’d taught him those – whilst keeping his fists balled to protect his artful fingers. Gritting his teeth against the blazing pain of his spell-scored leg, the bard felt his first taste of true fear, this night, as he realized the Borcan – a man who’d all but advertised his fondness for the Magic Missile spell, during the crisis at the late Manoir – had somehow penetrated his mirror-duplicates’ ruse instantly and effortlessly!

Sun’s blood, if he’s been concealing an ability to negate others’ illusions, it’s me who’s a dead man walking! Dilisnyas have long memories; even without his order, those thugs will beat me to death if they recognize me from—

But the very feel of the surface beneath him, as he set his palms against the ground’s icy dampness to roll over and face his attacker, offered a more forgiving explanation … and left Crow smacking himself in the forehead again, for not looking out the attic's bloody window before vacating his hideout.

Snow. Just plain snow, is all it is! Too damned long since I’ve wintered in the Balinoks; I’d forgotten what the wretched weather’s like in these parts. Touché, Borcan; that point, I’d say you’ve earned. The bard didn’t bother looking back the way he’d come; he knew that he’d see crisp, clear tracks in the fresh-fallen blanket of snow – very fresh indeed, for it must have been deposited in the hour or so between his return from Buchvold’s shop and the assault upon the townhouse – that led, zigzagging with his jinks and tumbles, directly to Crow’s feet and to none of his duplicates’.

As if mocking the bard’s belated recognition of his Mirror Images’ deficiency, a stiff stride he remembered all-too-well came pacing toward him, making no evident effort to mute – indeed, perhaps even accentuating, the better to drive home the oncomer’s superiority as an illusion-caster – the brittle crunch of booted steps on snow. Showing off, of course; rising onto his elbows and peering into the lanterns’ glare, Crow could see nothing of his target-cum-captor (yes, captor: he could hear more of the thugs closing in from behind, as the hirelings surrounded him) but a steadily-approaching train of imprints in the shallow snow-cover. Not wishing to appear intimidated – yet – by his foe’s powers or disoriented by his invisibility, the bard glared at the empty air, and his sharp ears strained, ready to catch the slightest hint as to the unseen figure’s posture, tenseness, vocal tone or subtle, intent-betraying fidgets. Not wishing to get shot, either, he turned his hands palms-up whilst keeping them in close contact with the ground: the clearest gesture of surrender he could manage, lying on his back, that wouldn’t be mistaken for a hostile spell in progress.

Crow’s spill had sent him flying a couple of feet beyond the last of his footprints, to land prone beside one of his likewise-sprawling duplicates. From the angle of his own limbs and that of his copy’s, the bard supposed it could look like either he or it might be the tracks’ source. Had Crow been a neophyte at his trade, unfamiliar with the psychological effects of captivity, he might have fallen prey to the ludicrous hope that the wizard would indeed mistake the double for himself … and in clinging to such hope, futile though his conscious intellect knew it to be, would’ve been driven to despair when his true location was inevitably unveiled. But this was hardly the spy’s first experience as a prisoner – everyone in his true profession faced such risks – and trusting false hopes wasn’t a thing he made a habit of: real hope was difficult enough for the bard to embrace, having witnessed so much darkness in his varied missions and roles. Besides, his dratted ankle hurt too badly to let him indulge such foolishness: its honest ache provided an anchor to reality that almost compensated for the pain.

Still, if the Borcan chose to play by such tactics – to toy with his captive’s fears and yearnings for a reprieve – then that was something Crow could take advantage of. And for a man who plainly knew which fallen figure truly was his quarry, Buchvold was certainly taking his time: standing invisible and silent, foot-impressions precisely halfway between the two, as if trying to distinguish which was real.

What are you doing, Raphael? Trying to steer me, perhaps…? If so, I can see the logic – keeping interrogation-subjects off-balance is critical – but you’re mixing your strategies. No way am I going to confide in you while you’re invisible, no matter how many “Good Inquisitor/Bad Inquisitor” ploys you and Dilisnya’s thugs might stage for me … but I’ll let you show your hand first, to show that you’re in charge.

A soft sound, mere inches in front of the prone bard’s narrowed eyes – the unmistakable toggle-and-scrape of a snap-lock’s hammer being cocked; a rarer commodity in Borca than in some of the Treaty nations, but the illusionist wouldn’t settle for less than the best – and a slight whiff of gun-oil from a well-tended pistol, nearly toppled the musician’s bravado. Surely the villain wouldn’t opt to shoot him right now, without questioning or even speaking to him?! Could Crow’s judgment have possibly failed him THAT terribly? Was he, perhaps, confronted with the only man in the Fraternity of Shadows who lacked curiosity?

The bard resisted a nigh-instinctive urge to close his eyes, recited song-lyrics backwards in his head to stifle half-formed prayers he’d long forsworn.

But no, Crow’d not misread the Borcan. Whatever cultivated affectations the Fraternity wizard might affect, the bard had recognized Raphael Buchvold for a bully at heart ... and a corpse – even that of one he might hate enough to murder, thusly – could not cringe. Mere seconds after the bard heard the wizard’s pistol being cocked (though it seemed far, far longer to Crow), a rich baritone phrase cut through the darkness with the atonal, weighty abrasiveness of wizard-magic. Sweeping an unseen hand dramatically through the air – a purely self-indulgent act, for an invisible caster, but the bard could feel its wind on his cheek – Buchvold (for it was, indisputably, the Borcan’s voice which had invoked them) unleashed another quintet of force-bolts, glowing and crackling with arcane power. Not at Crow, this time, but at five of the other duplicates – now scattered, supine and propped upon their elbows, as he was – that lay uselessly on undisturbed snow. Unflinching and passive so long as the bard wasn’t moving, the illusions vanished without complaint, their limited cohesion disrupted by the Missiles; in one fell swoop, the Borcan had stripped all but the nearest of his quarry’s copies from him.

Widening his eyes in feigned fear – even as his heart slipped from his throat back into his chest in relief: this was no execution; the Borcan was gloating! – the bard turned to face his sole surviving decoy (its gray eyes, identically turning to meet his own; the spell was called Mirror Image for good reason, as it defaulted to symmetrical actions in the absence of directive input from its caster), and mentally tweaked his disguise-spell to drain color from his “face”. Whether by flinching or blanching, something in his staged response must've hit its mark: the coarse fabric of his pilfered work-shirt was seized in a powerful grip – surprisingly so for a mage – and Crow felt himself yanked half-upright, then hauled onto his knees by a manhandler several inches taller than himself. His injured leg twisted under him as his balance shifted; for an instant, his expression and soft whimper of pain were totally sincere. The heat of the unseen mage’s breath, fogged by the chill, gusted across his brow, as a circle of icy metal (ah, there was the pistol) pressed up under the bard’s jaw. The pistol’s cocking-hammer clattered once again – the sound’s vibration, felt with eerie clarity at the point of contact between metal and skin – and a single, spite-laden word hissed venomously into his ear:

“Traitor…”

The bard blinked, in honest surprise.

That was hardly the accusation he’d been expecting! “Thief”, he’d extensively prepared himself for, had indeed spent the last two weeks cultivating such a persona as a natural extension of his contract-filching. Even “Imposter” would’ve at least made sense, had the mage’s own investigations been more extensive than his skimmed mail implied – although, if the Borcan were that competent, Crow would likely already have incurred a bullet to the brain – and could potentially have been dealt with, had he wheedled a chance to steer the man. But surely this oaf wasn’t so blindly single-minded in his paranoia, he’d convinced himself the bard was working for Van Rijn, of all the theories one could seize upon! Not after all the aid Crow had offered, in his guise as a “brother”, in saving their wretched Fraternity’s other books and so forth. For pity’s sake: without the bard's input and observations, the FoS might not have discovered the Doomsday plans’ theft, or deduced the rebel’s descent into lichdom, in the first place!

It was preposterous. Worse, it was stupid. And yet, the Borcan might well believe it, if his overweening pride in the Fraternity’s strength had barred him from considering the possibility of a third party’s intervention. And wrong-headed or not, Buchvold could most certainly kill the bard, in pursuing his own misconceptions. But there was no turning back now: he’d misjudged another’s mindset at the outset, so now he would have to cope with its reality or die.

So what else is new?, the bard quipped … ruefully, at himself. He closed his eyes for an instant, to collect his thoughts, and to savor a last moment’s relief that Tiahn, ensconced within the guitar-case’s dimensional void, wouldn’t be a “witness” to what followed.

Then he opened them, with a wide-eyed, charming, relieved look of guileless innocence, and began inanely prattling the first of the evening’s hydra-headed skein of untruths:

“B-Buchvold? Is that you? Bloody hells, man… for a while there, I feared the Sefeasa’d finally caught on to who really wrote that saucy limerick about the ermordenung and the dung-collector! Next time you’re up for a visit, a knock on the door’d work better than sending the servants up; these bravos of yours don’t seem to be entirely housebroken. Actually, I'd hoped to call on you myself, once I knew I’d be passing through town: you wouldn’t believe what I found lying on the floor, after our little scuffle with those wolfweres last month – figured it was some knick-knack of Van Rijn’s at first, it being tangled up with the beasts’ shredded clothing, but I guess you must’ve dropped it without knowing it when you were running around invisible; should’ve returned it to you then, I suppose, but things went a little mad what with the building blowing up and all, and a man can’t think of everything at once – and I could hardly entrust a magic document’s delivery to the postal service, so I’d planned to drop it off in person, first chance I g—”

Frankly, it astonished Crow that he got even that much claptrap out, before a sigil-ringed, invisible fist smashed him across the face.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Rotipher of the FoS
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Borcan & Bard #3: Questions and lies

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

He’d never expected the first ploy to work, of course. Hadn’t, in fact, even wanted it to; if the Borcan was that gullible, he’d be no use at all for the bard’s purposes. The mage’s ridiculous preconceptions made it difficult – Buchvold’s loathing for treachery ran even deeper than Crow’d suspected, and maintaining his own adopted persona’s facetiousness cost him an extra bruise or ten – but at least the man’s fastidious upper-crust status led him to entrust such menial chores to his hirelings, after the first punch. Not that the thugs were gentle, by any means – this was their stock-in-trade, after all – but the effete Sef trained his curs with a classically-Borcan eye on the bottom line: crippling the tradesmen who’d made Lechberg wealthy wasn’t in the interests of the ruffians’ true master, when a beating was due.

So long as they left his gifted hands intact, the bard could endure a great deal more than his slight build implied. Especially from cowardly louts like these: Crow had never been one to cave in to bullying tactics ... and a man who’d berate the Dark Powers for their misconduct would hardly quail before common hooligans’ abuse.

But he could fake it, rather well. And he’d been forced to do so, over the years, for such villains as made Raphael Buchvold look like a candidate for paladinhood. He only “resisted” long enough to make it convincing, and to win whatever modicum of respect the wizard might deign to concede, before the thugs’ blows began wringing “confessions” from him.

“Confessions”, that were lies within lies … and hints, to steer the Borcan’s thoughts and actions, carefully embedded within the lies.

C’mon, figure it out, you mule-headed zealot! You’re an intelligent man, whatever your sins; no matter how devoted or indoctrinated, you can’t pretend the Fraternity’s security wasn’t weak enough to make the Manoir an easy mark….

It took time. The bard had to restore his masking-spell twice, before the interrogation – a joke, that, for Crow’s irrepressible humor revived as his deceptions slowly took effect; the Borcan was imposing, but his tactics wouldn’t have held a candle to a Tepestani inquisitor, never mind the damned Kargat – was complete. The first disguise-casting, he’d passed off as dismissing the spell he’d worn when captured; the second, as part of the (over-lengthy, but what did a wizard know of arcane healing?) curative spell they’d forced him to apply to the lead ruffian’s bolt-pierced hand. As he’d so often observed, wizards’ basic concept of spellcraft was all structure, no improvisation; a sorcerer might have caught on, but the illusionist seemed oblivious to how the bard had twice pantomimed the same melody: once in the key of C, and again – same piece, different finger-placements – in E-sharp.

Near the end, Crow’d adjusted his voice as well – Vaasi was actually his weakest amongst the major languages, but Bergovistan street-dialect was synonymous with criminality to most Core natives, and an hour’s flirtation with the Sommet’s ticket-lass had informed the bard his target had attended “Devil-Cult of Kantora” at least twice last year; Buchvold leapt on the “clue” like one of the pseudo-historical play’s plains cats – and his cloaked features now matched those from the burglary, that the Borcan had evidently observed via illusory projection. (De Casteelle’s handiwork, eh? Definitely make a note of that! Too bad Dilisnya will, too; have to warn Buchvold just how big these thugs’ ears really are, once he trusts me…) More indication that the Borcan hadn’t actually been trained for this work: Crow was learning as much from his captor as vice versa.

Eventually – finally – Buchvold signaled the thugs to haul the bard off the floor. The townhouse was a mess; the ruffians had to bring another seat in from the parlor, all but one of the dining-room’s having been broken in their search. (Ivan didn’t train them to be cautious of private property, only of such tools as their victims would require to work off real or alleged debts, once “pacified”.) Crow had to pretend it was pain that made him wince, when they brought his chair in: a wad of the mastiffs’ bloodied fur – no, that wasn’t just fur, was it? – was stuck to the back of the seat. Two ghost-hounds, boys; I promise you that.

Wincing again, as the thugs eased him into the seat – no pretense as to cause, that time; for a book-loving wizard, Buchvold packed a considerable wallop – the bard gazed blearily as the “evidence” he’d carefully guided the Borcan to, with contrived failings of willpower and feigned slips of eye or tongue. From his shirt’s hidden pockets, the violet gemstone and blood-contract. From his guitar-case - its dimensional cavity, undetected and unsuspected by his captors - the balalaika and book. From the attic, the now-cooled brazier with its residue of molten silver … and another item he was suddenly very grateful to have missed, in his rushed packing.

A lucky break, that; perhaps even suspiciously so.

Were the bastards still toying with his luck, perhaps? First, a betraying flurry of snow, to chastise him, then a saving scrap of good fortune, to tempt his trust anew…? Think about it later, you fool: this lesser game for Buchvold’s not won yet!

Not won, but the end-game was rapidly approaching. At last, having perused the pages from the valise Crow’d overlooked, the Borcan sighed (YES!!!) and cast them aside.

“Unbelievable,” the illusionist muttered, shaking his head at the critical clue which the thugs’ search of the attic had uncovered. He’d dismissed his invisibility once the bard had been dragged back into the townhouse, away from prying eyes. “Unbelievable! But the ‘draft’ copies are just as you say, and you’re correct that Van Rijn could have provided you with a legitimate invitation, as he no doubt did for the wolfweres. Though I am surprised you kept these pages: most thieves ” (forcing out the word was difficult for Buchvold; to admit his vaunted organization had been vulnerable to internal treachery had been pride-wracking enough, but this?) “take greater care to dispose of incriminating evidence.”

The bard spread his arms expressively, in a ‘what-can-I-say?’ gesture. They’d not bound his hands again, after he’d demonstrated his instrument-summoning cantrip to account for the guitar-case’s aura of conjuration. Between his past reliance on a wand to fight at the Manoir, and his failure to vacate the scene of his capture via Dimension Door – an effect of similar complexity to Shout, the only significant attack-spell the musician had invoked on the night of the Manoir's fall, and one familiar to wizards and bards, alike – his captor had deduced (quite accurately, in truth… though this prisoner wouldn’t have fought his way out, had he the means: he was far too close to success) that Crow’s meager offensive repertoire had been exhausted.

They weren’t fools, of course. The bard might not feel the tips of crossbow-bolts pressed against his skin any longer, but he knew damn well the ruffians were back there.

Shrugging, the bard replied: “Too much trouble already, copyin’ Rosnel’s in Levkarest. Wouldn’t bet much, another Frat-man’ll toddle by dead-drunk, next time you toffs throw a bash. Why pitch a hand’s played true, afore…?” The slang-terms were a multicultural mishmash, couched to reflect what the theater-influenced nobleman would expect from a low-born Nova Vaasan expatriate, outcast from his arcanophobic homeland: one who’d roamed widely and learnt to ape the sophistications of the western lands, yet felt nothing but contempt for their pretentiousness. Never deny one’s “mark” a chance to think he’s better than you, Crow quoted a charlatans’ maxim to himself. Nobles expect nobles to lie well; subtlety from commoners – the more common, the better – blindsides them.

So does ambition.

Sure enough, the Borcan blinked. “Another ‘bash’? You mean—of all the nerve!” The illusionist’s fingers flexed, claw-like, in agitation. Another “tell” there, that the Borcan’s own pretensions were taking a battering. (When the bard couldn’t steal funding from his targets, he sometimes financed his missions via nights of cutthroat card-play in the Core’s finer gaming halls. The requisite skill-sets for gamblers overlapped quite nicely with those of bards and spies, alike; he seldom lost.)

Another shrug; a conspiratorial wink, despite the painful swelling of his black eye. Now that the worst was over, the wily side of Crow’s nature – the part of him that came fully alive, not from music, but from the thrill of his work – was starting to enjoy itself.

“Easy jump for dog-fox, baronet. Lone wolves hunt slow, afeared of hounds on the hill.” Any real Kantoran would’ve jeered – the “thieves’ cant” of the Sehkmaa-cultists in that inane musical had been entirely the playwright’s own invention – but the Borcan nodded, grudgingly accepting the faux-slang’s implication that the Fraternity of Shadows wasn’t likely to track a thief as rigorously as a routine gathering of nobles. Not when it had so many secrets of its own, that a criminal investigation might imperil.

At least, not track a thief by mundane means. You know they have plenty of other means of finding what’s theirs – that’s why I took those annotations out of the Core, altogether – so that means my knowledge of the FoS really does seem cursory, to you. Right? More proof you can control me, by my “ignorance” of their power, right?

The Borcan’s lips twitched slightly: a fleeting impulse to smile, imperfectly suppressed.

Right.

Buchvold started to shake his head, stopped, nodded to himself quite slowly. Crow had no need of magic, to follow the man’s thoughts – while the invisibility might’ve stymied his “people sense” outside, the inept interrogation had revitalized his capacity to intuit the wizard’s moods – and he knew his thief-persona’s casual admission that he’d intended to rob future Fraternity meetings had done the trick. A reckless criminal might conceivably risk infiltrating a gathering he’d known would be disrupted, in hopes of using the chaos as cover for pilferage… but only a madman would be foolish enough to repeat such a fraud, via the same superficial ploy, if he knew such an outrage would occur: security would be too tight, afterward.

(Yet another grifter’s aphorism: The surest of lies contain a solid core of truth.)

In reality, Crow’s hired forger had given him the practice-copies of the bogus invitation for the same reason she always gave drafts to her clients: to assure them she, herself, wouldn’t use the draft-copies for blackmail. Frankly, he’d quite forgotten those pages were in his forgery kit! But the ruffians’ search for proof of complicity with Van Rijn had, instead, helped exonerate Crow: had the bard had any advance notice whatsoever that the Manoir de Penombre was slated to be attacked – as traitor, thief, or spy – he’d have known the Fraternity would never let itself be fooled by mere invitations again, making the draft-copies worthless as templates for future scams.

“And the dagger?” Buchvold asked. Asked, not demanded; having his theory of Crow’s treason kicked apart had taken the bluster out of the man, if only temporarily. The wizard wasn’t used to making mistakes, and misjudging the bard’s allegiance – three times over, though the Borcan knew only of two – had undercut his confidence: another weakness for the VRS agent to exploit.

Poor Buchvold. Were you any less a scoundrel, I might even feel sorry for you: once this so-called “interrogation” became a conversation, you never stood a chance. Letting me get a word in edgewise was your real second-greatest mistake, tonight.

Not to suggest I’m forgetting how this started, mind you – even with healing magics, my blasted ankle’s liable to twinge for a week – or that I’m not planning to pay you back for every ache and bruise. But because I’m not you … because I like to believe my penance will someday let me call myself a better man than you … I’ll be deducting my compensation from that which your attitude tells me will hurt far, far worse than any beating: your pride.

Get used to it, Borcan. Your greatest mistake of all, tonight, was not shooting me on sight.

“Too fancy. Too traceable. And its magics, too black to risk trustin’ anyone mad enough to buy it. Silver was worth more’n the trouble I’d get, sellin’ that blade.” Crow spoke laconically, feigning jaded indifference. His thief-persona, “revealed” to Buchvold after considerable evasion, had the demeanor of a professional, utterly disinterested in what he couldn’t sell or make direct use of. The illusionist dealt with criminals often, yet shared his Fraternity’s cold disdain for the “unenlightened”; a cynical, incurious pose on the bard’s part would resonate with his captor’s prejudices.

“Indeed,” Buchvold murmured, conceding the point yet again. That the bard had melted the fiend-calling dagger down for its metal had come as a shock to the Borcan – watching the illusionist’s face fall, when the thugs presented the brazier’s contents to him, was intriguing for Crow; he wondered how much the corrupt weapon really had been worth, to make his captor blanch to lose it, and how the illusionist reconciled his mercantile acquisitiveness with his organization’s anti-materialist philosophies – and had likewise helped shatter his belief that the lich had backed the bard’s imposture. Van Rijn evidently had not practiced conjuring-magics (yet another tidbit for Crow to make a note of), but the renegade could have found other uses for such an item, most likely as a bribe to other dark beings of power whose aid he'd sought for his war against the Fraternity.

And then, of course, there was the blood-contract. As Buchvold, himself, had eventually concluded – with no need for Crow’s coaxing; once his “traitor” theory began to crumble, the wizard’s analytical mind had broken out of its rut, to make connections previously ignored – no agent of Van Rijn’s would have risked filching another attendee’s personal property before the transmuter’s tirade had erupted into mayhem. Not knowing that such a lapse, if discovered, could jeopardize the lich’s surprise attack … or that anything of worth carried by the loyalists could’ve been freely looted from the bodies, after the fact, had all who stood against them been slain at the Manoir, as the traitors intended.

“But why bring it back here? And why rob my office, if you truly knew nothing of the Fraternity but what that incompetent imbecile, Rosnel, blathered in his cups?” Buchvold protested, irately waving the contract in his prisoner’s face. The affront to his intellect in admitting he’d been barking up the wrong tree weas making him surly, as he verbally lashed out not merely at Crow, but at whichever of his fellows he could blame for the “thief’s” success.

Such anger-displacement wouldn’t last long. The moment of crisis was imminent.

“No value to me, already signed. No use disenchanted, either. Thought you maybe kept records on how to wipe it blank, so’s I could hock it. ‘Sides, you tole half the world you sell magic wares, before the fight kicked off; figured I’d make up for a dry run, back in St. Ronges.” Crow’s ‘confession’ expressed no shame at all, only the bare facts of his guilt. If any regret revealed itself in his tone of speech, it was only that, as a “thief”, he’d left the Manoir empty-handed, having been dragged away from the mansion’s valuables and drafted into a fight that wasn’t his, trapped in a role he had to maintain for the loyalists or be branded another traitor.

C’mon, ask me already! Ask about the book! Show me what you’re made of, Borcan!

“’No value’, you say. ‘No use’, as well,” the illusionist mused. The taller man looked at the bard again, then past his prisoner to the crossbow-bearing ruffians. The weapons had been too unwieldy to haul through the house while searching, but for keeping the bard in line – or executing him, should Buchvold order it – they were all too effective. “And the dagger, too recognizable to sell in secret, too dangerous to be sold at all, but only broken down for parts and destroyed. A practical course of action, that you settled upon swiftly enough, once you’d assessed the true nature and worth of what you held.

“I must wonder, then, why you of all people happened to be carrying this, of all ‘impractical’ things, on your person…” the wizard continued, picking up the bookmarked text that Crow had hastily stuffed into the guitar-case with the balalaika. He held it loose, then tight, then tighter and tighter.

“…and whether your explanation can possibly persuade me to spare the life of a man – a common thief, as his true nature and worth have now been determined; a man of ‘no use’ and ‘no value’ to me – who has robbed and deceived me, who has deceived and plotted to rob my brethren…”

Buchvold’s hand, its talon-crooked fingers gripping the bard’s own in-the-field copy of Van Richten’s Guide to the Lich, was shaking now, its knuckles suddenly white with fury.

“… and who now admits to knowing things – dangerous things, secret things – that none save the brotherhood’s own CAN BE PERMITTED TO KNOW, AND LIVE!!!
Last edited by Rotipher of the FoS on Sat Jan 07, 2006 8:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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Borcan & Bard #4: Endgame alliance

Post by Rotipher of the FoS »

Explosion. Crisis. The moment of truth. Buchvold’s anger – at Crow, at Van Rijn, at his own lapses of judgment during and since the debacle at the Manoir – that had roiled in frustration for weeks, denied a tangible target, had finally boiled over. Now, being that target, the slightest misstep or hesitancy on Crow's part would unquestionably cost the dark-curled bard his life.

Crow lived for moments like this….

“Page 53,” the bard said, quite calmly.

(He’d have pointed at the book as well, but Ivan’s thugs had stepped closer as Buchvold’s fury took hold, anticipating the execution-order. And, personal safety aside, having his winning play spoiled by some trigger-happy buffoon’s mistaking a mundane gesture for a last-ditch escape-spell would have ruined the “rush” Crow got from these situations.)

This time, it was the Borcan who blanched.

And, very reluctantly, turned to the page in question. And, in an increasingly-puzzled voice, began skimming its passages aloud:

“… trapped in a curious predicament … risks eternal imprisonment … could potentially encounter a body to inhabit … if one has a treasure of inexpressible value…”

Nothing which had transpired at the Manoir had made Buchvold’s eyes bug out that far. Only years of intensive practice – plus the fact he’d likely be beaten to death if he did – prevented Crow from snickering.

“You’re mad,” the Borcan gaped, as he finally starting to grasp the true magnitude of his captive’s audacity.

The bard’s pose was, at first, unperturbed. “He’s new. No hollowed-up mountains, no traps piled on traps. Zombies, scads of ‘em, but he wouldn’t know how best to use ‘em: Fraternity saw to that, bannin’ necromancy and all. Thought there'd be a chance.”

Buchvold slammed the book down on the table. “But he’s still loose out there! Even if you could do it, he’d hound you forever, come Mist or monsoon!”

The bard shrugged again. “Hound you, maybe. Plenty of coin in you Brothers’ pockets, eager to buy their revenge; plenty of others, too, might pay well for a pet monster who’s wise to your gang’s secrets. Not to mention he’s no pauper, himself! Highest bidder, y’know? The box a hostage, if he’s the buyer; my body a hostage, if it’s your lot, ‘cause killin’ me might let him come back wearin’ my carcass, if that Manoir blowin’ sky-high did for his own.

“It's all in that book, see…? Pinched it weeks ago, part of a set; figured I’d hock the lot to collectors. Or maybe turn ‘em in for bounty in Barovia: some boyars'll pay through the nose for a chance to burn them books; think it keeps that maniac boss of theirs happy.

“Figured I better start readin’ it, after St. Ronges; started gettin’ all sorts of ideas.”

Crow leaned back, frowning. He let a quaver creep into his voice. “But you called it right: they were crazy ideas. More I read, crazier they all sounded. Too much magic for me to deal with; I’m no wizard and no scholar, just a rookery-cub Lady Luck gave talent an’ an edge. Just too much everything, really: too much magic, too much evil, too much power.

"Man'd wrote that book, he always had a team – lots of skills, lots of hands, lots of different knacks workin’ together – to back his play, and it still wasn’t close to enough. Most times, more on a team just meant more of his pals didn’t come back. I work solo: work for no one and with no one, ever an’ always. So who d’ya think it’d be, not to come back, if I tried anything like he did?”

The bard’s eyes unfocused, becoming distant, and he opened them wider as he spoke. “Like nightmares, the stories in that book you’re holdin’, and reading ‘em gave me nightmares. Takin’ out wolfweres, that’s not much; flesh and blood, so’s they can die. Zombies, even, like back at that Manoir, aren’t so bad, ‘cause I know I’m way faster an’ smarter. But the things from that book…? How’s a dog-fox gonna outfox something smarter’n he is…? How do you sneak up on a thing that sees you in the dark, so he don’t catch wise to what you’re doin’, afore you do it…?

“Maybe I’ll sing about stealin’ a phylactery, someday; ‘s why I kept that book for ideas, ‘cause I thought that’d get the damn things outta my head, to put ‘em in songs, instead. But you’re right: I’d be catmeat if I crossed that thing – th-that lich – for real.”

The bard slouched in his chair, blinking, and did his best to look aghast over having said too much. The final ruse in his game, to bring about the intended outcome; his last piece – his last lure – now in play.

It was fear.

C’mon, Buchvold, put it together, already! Killing me isn’t your only option now, not if I’ve made you hate me as much as I think I have…

The illusionist leaned back in his seat, and stared at Crow, unspeaking, for a time. His tall frame and his features remained tensed; his fingers flipped pages in the Guide to the Lich, but Buchvold didn’t glance down at what those pages had to say.

that’s it, keep thinking! But think like a merchant, not just a Fraternity-member; think the way that made me choose you over the others.

Setting the book aside, the wizard steepled his fingers in front of him. The odd pose gave the bard a twinge in his chest – he’d never liked when people did that; it made them hard to read – but Buchvold’s gaze had shifted as he moved: dropped, if only for an instant, to the violet gemstone on the table between them. That was a good sign.

Think like a Borcan, like every blasted banker in your bloodline, like a fence who works with men like I am to you. Think about your assets!

At last, Buchvold interlaced his fingers, looked over them to Crow.

“You’re a churl of many tricks, or so you claim. To hear you boast, you could steal the sun from the sky and then persuade vampires to bid for it. If not for the quantity of information it seems you truly did blunder into – information, that the Fraternity of Shadows cannot afford to have disseminated – I might, in fact, be tempted to write off your insults and disrespect, and let you live to work off the debt you owe me, for all that you’ve stolen to date.

“The fact you do possess such information, however, ties my hands.

“If, however, there were a way you could prove these talents of yours – if I could believe you’re half so good a trickster as you claim to b—”

(Crow saw where this was going, and he hadn’t time to waste, “proving” himself by thieving for Buchvold’s personal profit. He interrupted.)

“Enjoy ‘From Hell’, by the way? Good seat, wasn’t it?”

Bug-eyes again. But the illusionist recovered quickly; he nodded, albeit grudgingly.

“I… see. Yes … perhaps further demonstrations would be superfluous. They would, I caution you, most definitely be fatal … for you, Mr. Crow.”

The Borcan rose to his feet and leaned over the table, bringing his full stature into play to loom over the bard. He glared down at Crow, and let the venomous hiss that’d colored his speech, when first he’d named his captive a “traitor”, return.

“You see, ‘trickster’, I have thought of a use for you, after all: a reason not to break you down for what-little of value your mind or flesh might harbor, but to apply your 'talents' in the interests of the very Fraternity you have offended against. I can assure you that you will not like it; I can even assure you that you probably will not – barring luck to exceed even the ludicrous amount you’ve already benefited from, that I’ve not yet allowed these gentlemen to shatter every bone in your body, hands included survive it.

“I may even have a use for the ridiculous pretense you confessed to me: that a scavenging dog such as yourself could conceivably ascend to sully the ranks of my brethren. And, perhaps, some lesser tasks, in the interim; of what nature, we shall see.

“But understand, thief: those ‘talents’ of yours will henceforth be employed at my beck and call, and the worthless life I spare will be forfeit – instantaneously – by my decree. You will keep no more secrets, pilfer no more property, tell no more lies, save on my explicit orders. Dare to speak but one more lie to mejust one! – and I shall revoke that reprieve.

“You robbed my office, and I found you within the hour. Betray me, and imagine how much faster I will give chase, no matter where you run, no matter how you hide.

“And then…”

Crow was impressed; the Borcan was far better at threats, when he thought he knew what was going on. Had the mage really known as much as he believed, the bard might’ve been very, very worried, right then. Instead, the dread in his voice, as he inserted his requisite line, was as fake as the illusory blanching of his features:

“A-And then…?”

Buchvold’s eyes darkened.

“And then, Mr. Crow, I will show you my power, my ‘talent’. I will show you a power to capture that which human eyes and souls quail to witness, that which stills hearts and shatters minds.

"If you refuse to comply, if you run, if you lie to me again … I will show you that thing. I will use my power to pull that thing from the darkest recesses of your mind. I will show you that secret thing – that thing of many forms – that hides in the hearts of all mankind: the bitter root of fear. I will bring it to you... and you will die.

“I suspect we can both guess, now, what form your fear may choose to take. Something from a certain book, perhaps…?

“So, you see, your fate will be no kinder if you flee your task than if you fail in it.”

The bard had pulled as far back from the looming wizard as his chair afforded, during his captor’s latest speech. His hands gripped the parlor chair’s armrests, knuckles white; his gray eyes showed whites around their edges.

Bloody illusionists: drama-queens, every one of them. Guess I was right about how he’d killed that other wolfwere, too. Thanks, Borcan: you’ve reminded me I don’t have to be sorry for you, or afraid of you either, because a man who relishes inciting fear that much is too cruel to deserve my pity and too craven, himself, to merit my respect.

(And if you ever do try that spell on me, I hope for your sake that you don’t see what your victims are seeing. Because you wouldn’t believe the things that really do scare me.)

The illusionist settled back in his chair, steepled his fingers, narrowed his eyes.

“Do we understand each other, Mr. Crow…?”

Outwardly – slowly, with a diffidence bespeaking terror – the bard nodded, and gulped aloud, as if his throat were dry as bone.

Inwardly, the VRS spy grinned like a jackal.

Too many operas and not enough folktales: academics never change. Me, I may not have visited Souragne in years, but even I know the true worth of the Bouki-tales.

Born and bred in the briar patch, Mr. Buchvold. You’re mine.
"Who [u]cares[/u] what the Dark Powers are? They're [i]bastards![/i] That's all I need to know of them." -- Crow
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