Café de Nuit

Nicloas wrote:"Well where do you wish to start Signore, divide these between us perhaps, or shall we start from the most recent and look together? I shall bow to your oft-employed investigative acumen in this case."

"Not nearly so employed as you might imagine Mr. de Castigne," the Borcan replied. "I'm sure you possess more experience in these matters than I. In fact, my interest with this whole investigation business began as merely a diversion from more mundane endeavors, but is quickly spiraling out of control. I dare say we might all be better quitting at it while we remain unscathed." A thin smile crossed his lips, giving the impression chagrined resignation. "Perhaps our curiosity is simply a differing manifestation of the madness everyone else is suffering from."

The tollere places his attache near the base of the table, then rolls up his sleeves. He does so carefully, almost more of a fold than a roll to avoid wrinkling his suit. He sits down across from Nicolas. He raises an eyebrow in irritation at the poet's boots, but keeps any criticism silent on that point. "I think it best we simply get a start and examine as much as we may for clues." Instead he pulls a pad of paper and a quill from his case, opens a nearby tome and sets to work. "I shouldn't imagine it will matter much which we begin with as we cannot be certain what exactly we are looking for."

Agale's eyes dart across the pages quickly, his hand jotting down notes to be consulted later. He appears very much the accountant, tallying sums and looking for inconsistencies. He keeps a careful watch out for dog-eared pages and sections that have seen particular use.

Perception 11

M. Eisenwald wrote:"Follow the money." Tomas murmurs, checking the reciept again. "Wait." Tomas blinks. "These are the Warden's property. I had thought that he just borrowed a lot from the library..." Tomas checks a few more books. Note. Note. Note. Note. "...how could a low ranking Anchorite afford this kind of hobby?"

“What a clever deduction, M. Eisenwald!” Celeste clearly hadn’t thought of that. “I confess that the province of Warden Lecanu’s library occurred to me not at all, in light of its impeccable taste. Why, to think that even a humble Anchorite possesses such redoubtable acumen as to match his reading habits to the exhibition schedule of the Guignol Museum! Why, he must follow the ebb and flow of the displays there as rapturously as I myself do, to enmesh himself so enthusiastically in research upon them…”

You could see the slow realization on her face. “…Heavens! Can it be… Messieurs, in my investigative naivety, I believe that I have just seized upon a Significant Inference! Oh, joyous fortuity!”

The twins are already beginning to examine the mirror for purposes of dismantling it when Nerit issues her command. "Yes," Darius says distantly, and glances at his brother, pointing out something in the frame and saying two or three words in Vaasi.

Without further ado the two begin their project, detaching the glass of the mirror from its backing. They work with uncanny speed and almost no conversation at all, performing even rather complex manipulations without discussing what to do next. The customary jibes and habitual mutual antagonism has disappeared entirely into an eerie perfection of community...almost as if one mind managed all four hands.

"Forbi!" Darius says, as the glass comes away in his hands.

Warden Christin Vaillant's Quarters, Ste. Mere des Larmes, Quartier Publique, Port-a-Lucine; Afternoon of March 24th, 770
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Rock wrote:"Not a word to the Bastion yet, please," she says, placing her hands on the Blackwoods' shoulders. "Not until we have examined this book and made certain. I have a ... feeling. An unpleasant feeling. But we need to correlate our findings with those of the others, and we need to study this book in greater detail."

"A, a, a feeling, professor?" Richard asked, looking stiff and uncomfortable at the sudden familiarity. "You, you believe the Bastion would, would hinder us?"

"Any chance you might share this feeling with us?" Alice asked, joining Lia at the wardrobe.

The wardrobe itself was not the stuff of epics. It contained three neatly pressed Warden's robes. The robes looked much like every other Warden's robe, having no distinct markings, bloodstains, traps, magical auras, interesting stains, misplaced stitches, notes in the pockets, or pockets at all.

"No belt cord, but I assume he must have been wearing it," Alice noted.

Richard refrained from comment on the wardrobe, folding his arms and glancing at the book Lia held from time to time.

Warden Martin Grenier's Quarters, Ste. Mere des Larmes, Quartier Publique, Port-a-Lucine; Afternoon of March 24th, 770
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"Forbi!" Darius says, as the glass comes away in his hands.

The mirror came out of the frame easily enough, sufficiently loose in its moorings to convince you that this was hardly the first time someone had removed the glass. The glass wasn't heavy, just large and clumsy, and in the Isfahani's capable hands it was without trouble.

As they lifted the mirror aside, they could make out the dark discoloration beneath the glass. It was a stack of papers, bound with a grey string, and hanging from a stub of a nail in the mirror. A decent little hiding place, one had to say. The Isfahanis moved the mirror aside to lean it against the wall, and as they did so, the afternoon light flashed across the surface of the lead-backed glass.

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• It's just a glimpse, a way the eyes slid into the mirror that let them see beyond. It was very brief, a heartbeat, no more, but marvelously detailed, with every single fragment etched into your memory... as though carved there with a shard of glass.
  
  You see a plain, a featureless expanse of dead-grey, without sun, without moon, without stars or cloud or sky, only grey. In the center of this infinite field, a field of cold and jagged rock, stands a single tree. It is without leaves, this tree, and ever branch is crooked and gnarled, twisted at angles that hurt your eyes even as you look at them. Even when you tried to remember them, the byzantine arrangement of the branches causes your head to hurt.
  
  One thick branch seems to stretch almost into the foreground, disappearing somewhere directly above the mirror. There is a rope tied around this branch, and from it hangs a noose. This noose is slipped around the two feet of Warden Martin Grenier, Darkonian and anchorite of Nevuchar Springs. He hangs there, in this featureless and infinite field, from a tree that is not a tree. He is dead.
  
  You know this for a fact. Warden Grenier hangs from the tree without moving, upside down and tied by his feet. His face and hands are covered with scratches, though blood has long since ceased to flow. More gruesomely, Grenier's eyes have been carved out as though with a jagged blade or shard, leaving only gaping, bloody sockets in his head. Martin Grenier is dead.
  
  For a moment, his lips begin to move, and you cannot shake the feeling that he sees you as well, but no sound can carry through the mirror. All this took a bare second to see. Then the light shifts once more, and the glass shatters into a thousand pieces.

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A heartbeat after the dim sunlight met the glass, there came a sudden, strange twisting as the glass nearly jumped from the Isfahani's hands. It fell to the floor with a resounding CRASH, shattering into a thousand little pieces, shards of glass scattering all over the floor of Warden Grenier's little room.

Main Library, Ste. Mere des Larmes, Quartier Publique, Port-a-Lucine; Afternoon of March 24th, 770
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Mr. Agale wrote:"I shouldn't imagine it will matter much which we begin with as we cannot be certain what exactly we are looking for."

Agale's eyes dart across the pages quickly, his hand jotting down notes to be consulted later. He appears very much the accountant, tallying sums and looking for inconsistencies. He keeps a careful watch out for dog-eared pages and sections that have seen particular use.

The poet and accountant spent a near half-hour paging through random texts - Holy Books and poetry, theological diatribes, scholarly musings, maps and primers on language, history books of varying quality, and one rather cheesy pulp novella - and found a good deal of nothing. Neither man could find any significant clues in the text, nor any theme in the texts themselves, and it seemed the good warden had not been so good enough to wreck the library's books by folding the corners of the pages.

The pair were nowhere near through the huge stack of books at the end of the half-hour, but something beyond pages and pages of words attracted attention. A woman, middle aged with blond hair, approached the table where the two men sat. She was a tall woman, with blond hair and dark brown eyes, her skin dry and brittle looking like aged parchment. Her robes were trimmed with far more white than those of the average acolyte, marking her out as someone of importance.

"Those who look only for that which they seek, cannot see the journey that takes them there," the woman offered sagely. "Those who look only forward cannot see the answers that lie to their side."

"Good day, travelers," she greeted. "I can see that you are seeking something."

A moment.

Two.

"...well, don't keep us in suspense, girl!" Tomas exclaims, on the edge of his seat in spite of himself.

"Unless he has family that would be providing the money, or a significant inheritance, wouldn't he be have to be getting it from...somewhere other than his religious duties?" Kerrian mused, trying to hide a small amount of envy at the size of the library, even if it was acquired through potentially illicit means.

"Could he have been stealing from the Church? And he seems to change his interests quite a bit..."

OOC:Insight of 16

DocBeard wrote:"...well, don't keep us in suspense, girl!" Tomas exclaims, on the edge of his seat in spite of himself.

Celeste laughed lightly. "Simply that Lecanu showed a surpassing interest in the Museum...the very seat of our City's present difficulties! I am uncertain as to the precise significance of the fact, no doubt, but it may be significant nevertheless."

Kerrian's face went pale, which considering his usual lightly tanned countenance, was saying quite a bit. "The blade split the blackbirds in the catacombs...which one could easily access from here. Is it possible we're not seeing an abduction..and instead seeing an escape of Co-conspirators?"

Kerrian chose that moment to settle in to pacing about the room, rather like a caged animal.

"Or I could just be thinking ill of a man of faith because we don't have much to go on, and he happens to like history. I truly want it to be that. Or somone who was trying to stop whatever happend or..." Kerrian frowned, making a sound that was quite too much like a growl for most folks taste before his pacing finally came to a stop back at one of the bookshelves.

Instead, he picked up one of the books on Pre-Leon Dementlieuese history, and began to page through, looking for annotations, or anything else that would single out areas of interest.

"No annotations or inserts...at least he took good care of his books."
OOC:Perception 23

"We've been seen," Darius mutters in Vaasi, then, switching back to Mordentish, "Maybe just as well the mirror broke. Seven years bad luck, but for who?"

Flashing his teeth in a gesture more like a nervous grimace than a smile, he reaches for the bundle of papers, disentangling it from the hook which had held its securing string.

"Maybe he saw too much, this Grenier," he says quietly, tapping the bundle against the heel of his other hand. "Mirrors can dangerous that way."

Nerit narrowed her eyes and leaned over the shattered glass. Now her reflection was fragmented, a thousand tiny pieces of herself squinting back at her. Something about the mirror itself bothered her, greatly. Her jaw was set forward, tight at the hinges.

"Exi, nothus!" the nun hissed. Was it a curse? Or a vow? She shoved a piece of glass with her toe.

She turned back to Darius and gestured to the papers. "Well, what is this ephemera?"


Arcana on the broken mirror: 22

"It is difficult to explain," Lia says as she starts sorting through the Anchorite's other books. "But once, long ago, I met someone who was studying the past so he could recreate it. He succeeded, in a way, but fortunately he was killed by a very brave man before he could accomplish his goal. If he had managed ... it would have been bad."

Lia turns to look at the Blackwoods again. "I do not mean to lambast your Bastion, but as you say, some people are interested in restoring la Ste. Mêre des Larmes to its original state ... and to the best of my knowledge, though the texts found here are nigh-identical to those of the Home Faith, no one in Dementlieu knew the original purpose of this building, or what deity was actually worshipped here. Or what else might have been done here.

It has ocurred before that a faith stored texts belonging to rivals or outright enemies, to preserve them against need yet keep them away from the faithful. And I have seen structures that could induce madness in the unwary. Possibly, it is just my paranoia talking, but I would rather be safe than sorry. Especially if something in the catacombs is being used to induce the madness now lashing this coutry."

Tomas frowns a little, hoping that Celese doesn't get too, well, so far she's been handling weirdness fairly well. But he knows from personal experience what it feels like to have a friend recoil in horror at your true nature, and he doesn't want Kerrian to have to go through that. Sure, he probably already has, but when has that ever stopped Tomas?

"Its a thought." Tomas adds, after a moment. "But just that. Something to file away for later; as for where he got the books from, Herr Warden was kind enough to write this down for us." Tomas pauses, looking at one of the receipts, and copies the information onto a blank notebook he brought with him. "If you two could assist me, it would be appreciated. He has, how you say, created his own paper trail, and Herr Captain would love to have something as mundane as investigating a victim's relationship with a few booksellers to give his men to do, ja?"

A few more moments pass before Tomas musters up the ability to say what's on his mind. "About this morning, I just wanted to apologize." Tomas sounds uncharacteristically sheepish, or at least less shameless than usual. "I was just being frustrated. You two've probably forgotten all about it, what with the dramatics and all, but..." Tomas shrugs, unable or unwilling to vocalize any further.

Warden Christin Vaillant's Quarters, Ste. Mere des Larmes, Quartier Publique, Port-a-Lucine; Afternoon of March 24th, 770
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Lia wrote:"But once, long ago, I met someone who was studying the past so he could recreate it."

Lia turns to look at the Blackwoods again. "I do not mean to lambast your Bastion, but as you say, some people are interested in restoring la Ste. Mêre des Larmes to its original state ... and to the best of my knowledge, though the texts found here are nigh-identical to those of the Home Faith, no one in Dementlieu knew the original purpose of this building, or what deity was actually worshiped here. Or what else might have been done here."

"On your Expedition, yes, we'd heard a few things about it," Alice replied. The young woman fell into a brooding silence, preoccupied in thought.

Richard shifted uneasily, looking almost mournful. "Ezra was, pro-professor. By proof of, of the Third Rite of Revelation." He sighed then, giving a small frown, and altered his approach. "It would take more money than the, the city has to rebuild Ste. Larmes, even, even with the Bastion's approval. Something, something under the church, perhaps. I never saw anything in Ste. Larmes that, that I would call malevolent, but, as you say, there's no reason not to, to return it to the library and show it to the others."

The unspoken ultimatum that the book would remain in the library hung in the air behind the sentence. Richard looked like he was extremely uncomfortable in making it, despite the fact that he hadn't, but did not look like he intended to yield on the matter without a better reason.

"Assuming his men are sane. I mean, Captain Cedolin seemed...off." Kerrian said, dutifully beginning to write down merchant names. "Someone trying to magically murder him probably isn't going to be good for his stability either. Anyway, I'm not sure how much actual investigating the Gendamrie is going to be doing."

It was after a moment that Kerrian looked up from his transcription "And Tomas, you're just trying to keep us from getting involved in something that...well, quite honestly could probably get us killed. " Kerrian looked down, not back at notetaking, but at some spot on the ground that was particularly interesting at the moment.

"Like it or lump it, we are involved though...I got attacked by something at Eglise Sainte-Madeleine, something that should NOT have been at a holy place." Kerrian shuddered, feeling for a moment a chill that was not simply from unseasonably chill weather.

"And during the chaos of that night, my parents home was ransacked...because of what I am. They're lucky they weren't killed...I..saw others like me...or at least their skins..hanging as a warning." Another shudder, and a turn back to transcription, financial records a good attempt to block imagery from the young man's mind, though likely not really that successful.

"I've got an obligation to see this through now, no matter how dangerous it may get. Not just because of what happened to me, or to my parents and kin..but because of what happened to the city..maybe even the country." Kerrian looked up from his transcription, to Thomas and Celeste.

"The Ezrans look after the souls of the People...and that's good...but what about the City's soul? Or the Nation's? If I can do something to protect it...then that's what I've got to do."

Nicolas had found this avenue of enquiry teadiously pointless so far, although the demeanour of his compatriot was better than expected. Maybe I am just paranoid he muses whilst leaning back on his chair and purusing the annotated atlas of Darkon, trying to imagine where he would hide a clue in it if he was the Warden.

As it was he was fully engrossed in the book and not paying attention when the woman arrived, the shock of which caused him to tip over backwards and land in a heap on the floor with a loud thud. Picking himself, the chair and book up he coughs slightly in embarrasment. "Ahem, indeed we are, although in line with your sagely advice the exercise so far hasn't illuminated much."

"Mayhap one who knows this library better would be inclined to assist us, or at least enlighten us on how to look sideways, good Sister....?" He says attempting to clarify the womans position and name all at once.