The Shattered City: Chapter Four

[Nathan of the FoS]

"A very apt description, mademoiselle, if you are a fair representative," Mercator says, smiling slightly. Seeing that Celeste has Tomas to help her, he nods at Inkeri and takes his leave.

[NeoTiamat]

1 Days, 21 Hours, 42 Minutes
Inky's Emporium, The Midnight Market, Just past Midnight on April 23rd, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ehwaz...I'm trying to think of ways we could track her breath. I mean, we've got one of her dolls, and they did sort of give a last message, but I'm not sure if that's what we should be looking for. I could try a vision my way to find out more...but I doubt we'll get the information we need. Or even where I should do it."

"Well, hey, Kerry, why don't we ask someone here at the Market?" Cerise asked, putting a finger to the corner of her lips as she twirled the toe of her boot against the ground. "Or even find someone to help you with your spiritualism. I bet someone here can help you out. I mean, Inky's stuff looked pretty similar, don't you think?"

Inkeri looked a bit dubious, but said, "For a price, I could try to teach you something of my craft. Even should you find the Breath, though, you will have to find some way of catching something that moves faster than the wind, and runs between this world and the next."


1 Days, 21 Hours, 23 Minutes
Century Oak, The Midnight Market, Just past Midnight on April 23rd, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Richard and Lemercier had returned to the booth before you. The younger Blackwood was currently kneeling to tend to Perrine, keeping her as comfortable as she could be. Remy was standing off to the side, mostly staying out of the way - Richard seemed quite skilled with his minstrations. As you approached, Richard stood up, quickly picking up a pair of wooden boxes from the booth table and tucking them under his arm.

“—It was at this moment that I said to the Viscount that what he claimed were merely scavengers was in fact a ghoul infestation on his estate.” Prof. Lemercier was regaling the Reniers at the moment with some suitably embellished accounts of his early travels. The ponderous professor was currently sitting on a chair he had liberated from no one could be quite certain where. “Unfortunately, the Viscount, in addition to have that truly wonderful collection of early Maregliani portraiture, was also the leader of the ghoul cult.”

“How perfectly ghastly.” Bertram said, looking decidedly non-aghast at this revelation. The white-haired Renier was leaning against the tree. “Did he at least have the good taste to cook them?”

“You know, young man, I never thought to ask.” Lemercier said with a dry smile. “In any case, this was one of my first forays into the field of escapology. Very useful if not perfectly respectable, but then Occasio facit furem1, as they say.”

“As who says?” Bertriz said, with an utterly straight face. The third member of the little conversational circle was sitting at the booth, currently without customers, and sitting reversed in the chair with her arms propped up on the back.

“They.” Lemercier said, quite ominously.

“We are here.” Katja Zweibach interrupted the story hour, which earned her genteelly dirty looks from both Lemercier and the Renier twins. “How shall we deploy ourselves?”

“We require ten components. Two, we have already. So, we need find eight. Six runes, we can search for directly. Dust, we need to find someone else to seek. Breath, we need to find how to catch first. Eight goals, then.”

1 -- "Opportunity makes the thief."

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"Unless anyone knows an immortal we can lay our hands on at short notice," Lia says, "a few people are going to have to take a trip to the sewer to collect a starved, delusional, imprisoned vampire. I would nominate myself to be part of the group, except I might lose my way down there and I am not the most diplomatic of people. Volunteers? He has a collar around his neck, so there should not be any immediate danger. Might be a good idea to bring him a piglet or something to snack on, though, to make him a bit more clear-headed."

[Kaitou Kage]

Rex quietly listened to everyone chiming in with their opinions and ideas. As they talked, he slipped around the modest crowd to Nerit's side. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Sister," he said quietly in Darkonese, "Would you do me the pleasure of accompanying me? I believe we will have better luck working together than apart."

[Nathan of the FoS]

Mercator nods politely at the group assembled beneath the oak and asks, "Has anyone called on business while I was out?"

He asks with a slightly distracted air; he's been silent since leaving Inkeri's place of business. Shrugging and sighing, he looks around and says, "A question about Monsieur Bouchard: do you have any reason to associate him with a particular animal? And would any of you happen to know his date of birth?"

[The Whistler]

"So very many options! I had not considered plumbing the depths of M. Boucher's character through such arcane means, but now that the opportunity has been presented one must find it splendidly novel... Perhaps Hail...or Mind!..."

Celeste was basically talking to herself at this point. Someone had done the misfortune of filling her in on the meaning of the runes on the walk over, and she had been eagerly pondering the possibilities ever since.

"A question about Monsieur Boucher: do you have any reason to associate him with a particular animal? And would any of you happen to know his date of birth?"

"The phoenix! Ah--as answer to the former question, that is, Dr. Melanchthon. It was ever his abiding signature, in matters of evocation...how appropriate, then, that we might seek to lift him again from the ashes! As for his birthdate..."

Celeste flipped through the appointment book that she suddenly was holding, clearly not remembering the day offhand. After thirty seconds or so of searching, though...

"November the First! Oh--I shall have to engage a caterer."

This despite the fact that November 1st was in the fall. Those of you who were standing behind Celeste could see the entry for that day underlined several times and surrounded by drawings of flowers, as well as an adorable caricature of Thierri petting a bunny rabbit on the head.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Mercator looks very interested indeed at Celeste's information--much more than one might expect for two pieces of information with no obvious application to the present situation. "Evocation...the Phoenix..." he murmurs. "How singularly appropriate. Might I look at the map, Mlle. Blackwood?"

Scanning it briefly, he taps at the glyph Inkeri denominated as Fire. "I believe I will seek the kindred spirit," he says. "Would anyone care to accompany me?"

[NeoTiamat]

1 Days, 21 Hours, 19 Minutes
Century Oak, The Midnight Market, Just past Midnight on April 23rd, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mercator nods politely at the group assembled beneath the oak and asks, "Has anyone called on business while I was out?"

“No.” “No.” Bertram and Bertriz said in the same breath. They didn't even bother to glance at one another as they did so.

"Unless anyone knows an immortal we can lay our hands on at short notice..." Lia says,

“Perhaps I might recommend myself as an alternative option? Pardon the intrusion, but I just couldn't help but overhear.”

The voice seemed to come from nowhere in particular, sounding from an empty spot just above your heads. It was a smooth, silken voice, a little amused perhaps. Masculine, certainly, with more than a hint of a smug drawl in its notes.

“It's just that vampires are so notoriously unreliable. Bloodlust, fear of light, the tendency to burst into flames at the slightest provocation...” The voice continued, sounding quite amused. “It would really be quite if young M. Boucher were to be doomed because your agent spontaneously combusted at an inconvenient moment.”

“Who are you?” Katja said sharply, turning her head around to try and find the source of the voice. “Where are you?”

Certainly there didn't seem to be anyone in the immediate vicinity of the Century Oak. A quartet of black-robed figures, none coming up quite past one's ankle, haggled in low voices near one of the confectionery stands. A small, gray cat was curled on a tree-branch nearby, a lithe tail hanging over the edge of the branch, eyes closed and apparently fast asleep. A hunch-backed man with a decidedly piscine face was hawking his wares along the road, though the wares seemed to consist of live mice. He might have been staring at you, or perhaps he just couldn't blink. A figure in midnight blue stalked past him, face covered in a dark, cloth mask, a withered, six-fingered hand clutching a black satchel. No one else was even close.

“Why I'm right here.” The disembodied voice said with perfect aplomb. “You can call me... A Friend. I'm really very friendly. All my friends say so.”

[DocBeard]

"And how many of those do you happen to have?" Tomas deadpans before he can stop himself; he's always had a grudge against disembodied voices. Pausing from double checking the map and mentally debating a memory jogging potion, Eisenwald stands up, crossing his arms and frowning in the direction of the voice.

"Good evening. I suppose you have overheard, ja?" Tomas offers after a moment, offering a reluctant handshake.

[Nathan of the FoS]

"A pity," Mercator murmurs. This time he seems to believe the assertion that no-one has come--perhaps because there are now four people here who might contradict a bald-faced lie.

He looks slightly startled at the interjection of the disembodied voice into their conversation, and not very pleased at Tomas' surmise that its owner has been overhearing their conversation; smoothing his expression, he bows slightly in the direction he judges the voice to come from and says, "It is kind of you to take an interest in our present difficulty. If I might venture--it might be easier and more pleasant for carry on our conversation if you would be so good as to show yourself?"

[Nerit]

Nerit was just nodding to Rex--it seemed she didn't mind his melding in and out of her focus--when she heard the voice. She had been about to respond to the pharmacist, but the Northern words died in her throat.

She went very still. Her hands stayed in her pockets, and she stared toward the oak, but really more like nothing at all.

Slowly, very slowly, Nerit shut her eyes and frowned. A muscle in her jaw twitched as she inhaled.

Her brown eyes opened again and focused on Mercator. She shook her head at his proposal broadly, loose, ash strands of hair waggling with the movement.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Lia's eyes narrow behind the veil. "I generally like to know the proper name of people I am asked to enter into life-or-death deals with," she says while she looks at the general area the voice came from. "And what they are charging for their... services."

(OOC: Arcana check of 16 to scan for the source of the voice.)

[NeoTiamat]

1 Days, 21 Hours, 13 Minutes
Century Oak, The Midnight Market, Just past Midnight on April 23rd, 770
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And how many of those do you happen to have?" Tomas deadpans before he can stop himself; he's always had a grudge against disembodied voices. Pausing from double checking the map and mentally debating a memory jogging potion, Eisenwald stands up, crossing his arms and frowning in the direction of the voice.

"Good evening. I suppose you have overheard, ja?" Tomas offers after a moment, offering a reluctant handshake.

“I certainly hope I never become the kind of person who goes around counting their friends. Dreadfully self-centered behavior, I would think.” The voice said primly, though with a laughing undertone to his words.

Nothing shook Tomas's hand.

"It is kind of you to take an interest in our present difficulty. If I might venture--it might be easier and more pleasant for carry on our conversation if you would be so good as to show yourself?"

“I rather doubt it.” The unseen speaker drawled. There was a pause and a tiny grunt, as though the creature was stretching.

Lia's eyes narrow behind the veil. "I generally like to know the proper name of people I am asked to enter into life-or-death deals with," she says while she looks at the general area the voice came from. "And what they are charging for their... services."

“Well how do you know that my mother didn't name me A Friend?” The smug voice pointed out, still appearing to come from nowhere in particular. “Would it be really that much more peculiar than your name?”

“In any case, who said a word about deals or charging for services? I'm doing this out of the charity of my own heart.” The voice paused here, then added, still amused. “Or for my own inscrutable and alien purposes, whichever you feel more comfortable with.”

[Nathan of the FoS]

"I rather doubt it."

Catching Nerit's gesture, Mercator shifts his shoulders, a trifle uncomfortable, and says, "Very well; you would know best. As for the matter of assisting us...we are in need of assistance, but you must understand that the matter is delicate, and requires both discretion and diligence. Ah...may I ask how much you have learned about the task we have in mind?"

[yalenusveler]

"At this point, I'd honestly take inscrutable and alien over out of benevolence. One's easier to understand." Kerrian said quietly. "Now, you've been invisibly observing us for how long? You may be trying to help for inscruitable alien motives, but a baseline of trust is a pretty good thing to have."

OOC:Insight 25 on "friend"