Café de Nuit

Outside Flammarion's store:
Raen moved closer to Benn before he left "does this invitation include me? If yes, I would like to attend as well, but I would require directions."

Before leaving Flammarion's store Sara asks:

"Master Flammarion, we got more rats from the river, apparently they were trying to escape. I have them here in the sack. Do you need them for evidence? otherwise I will release them outside."

VAN wrote:Before leaving Flammarion's store Sara asks:

"Master Flammarion, we got more rats from the river, apparently they were trying to escape. I have them here in the sack. Do you need them for evidence? otherwise I will release them outside."

''Rats? I have the one that's caged. That's good for now. I don't want my shop overrun by the creatures. It's best that you should dump them someplace outside-- preferably well away from here."

THOM'S MANSE
NORTHWESTERN DISTRICT OF CITY, NEAR THE OLD WALLS




As the sun sets, the servants light lamps in the sloping front garden, hanging them from the limbs of the oaks and maples, after first wetting the ground below to prevent any falling embers from starting fires in the grass and fallen leaves.
One set in place, the lights illuminate the garden path up the hill to the front door of the three-story manse that cover the whole top of the long hill.
The servants return to the house, leaving the garden to humming insects and silent marble statues.

THOM'S MANSE, EXTERIOR
NORTHWESTERN DISTRICT OF CITY, NEAR THE OLD WALLS

A five-foot-tall stone wall surrounds the grounds of Thom's Manse. A grove of staggered Oak and Maple trees, decorated sparsely by flowers, bushes, and statues, abuts the stone wall surrounding the property. The grove outlines the path leading to an iron gate. Beyond the gate, a stone path leads up a small hill to the mansion’s front porch. A mausoleum, is visible inside the stone wall. Between the mausoleum and the house lies a well cared for garden with stone benches.

Some of the ground floor windows of this three-story manor house are stained glass. The window frames of these stained glass windows have carved decoratively with a floral pattern. Overhead, windows curve out from the southwest corner above one of the two ground-level entrances. A large covered wooden porch frames each of the two front doors.

Bennedict and Charlotte arrive in a coach, the former stepping out and helping the latter down the steps. He pays the driver, and they turn to enter into the dinner.

"It was good of your nurse to stay late with Hornsby to watch the children," he says. "Hopefully they don't give them too much trouble."

Sara decides at the last minute to put her armor under her green dress, she puts a scarf around her neck as well to cover the upper part of the armor. In her purse she hides one more time her gun and the dagger. Who knows if they bump in another odd creature this evening. Looking at the mirror one last time, she smiles with what she sees and heads to Thom's house.

THE FIRST DINNER-GUESTS TO ARRIVE

at Thom's hilltop mansion find a courteous, unobtrusive staff of footmen, maids, and a butler waiting on them.

Charlotte makes no attempt to disguise her favorable impression of the service, smiling sideways at her husband now and then, and once whispering in his ear "If we hired a couple more servants, I'd have more time with the children. A fulltime cook, maybe?"


Thom's footmen offer a closet (with a stout, lockable door) for the guests to deposit any encumbering baggage, cloaks, weaponry, or armor.

The interior décor , at least in the entry hall and adjacent rooms and halls, follows conservative Richemuloise fashions such as one may find in the house of a gentleman or wealthy merchant of good taste: varnished wood paneling along the interior walls, dried reeds spread on the floors near the front door to absorb dampness and mud tracked in, a few small oil paintings in dark-stained frames.

ALAIN

IN THE WESTERN DOCKLANDS


ALAIN

has gone home, talked with Wat, and gone out again, all since leaving Benn and the others with Hornsby outside Flammarion's shop.

The sun sinks lower in the Western sky, but hasn't set yet. The ash cloud filters some of the waning afternoon light, but otherwise the sky remains clear.
Refugees, peddlers, some low-end merchants, a few drunks, and some beggars loiter on the seedy, decrepit waterfront and boardwalks. A few of the people here seem to be waiting for boats to take them away to the more populated eastern quarter while others are gathering their goods and then heading off towards the nearest causeways.
It seems few people wish to spend a night under the ash cloud...


Forgoing dinner (Thom probably doesn't even know Alain has returned to the city, after all, and so there may not be a place set for him)


Alain has come to the docklands with Wat to hire men.
He engages the same lot of Falkovnians he'd run into earlier, as it happens. He pays Ludwig and seven of the other men and older boys to act as lookouts and torch-carriers on a small scouting expedition he's arranged on the fly.
The refugees seem to be mostly laborers and clerks; some of them fit and strong, but they don't seem like the sort of hardened killers and professional fighting-men that make up Drakov's elite fighting force.
Buying torches and lanterns presents no difficulty.


Finding mercenaries on short notice proves a bit more difficult than Alain may have hoped.
Still, he manages to scrounge three bravoes from a pub and sober them up enough to serve as additional muscle. They come cheap.


Next, Alain looks for weapons and armor. The legitimate craftsmen and dealers have mostly gone home to sleep by the time Alain reaches the nearest shop of that sort. But after some searching and asking around the slummier parts of town, he finds an arms dealer working out of a small barge on one of the canals.

Alain cleans out the dealer's entire stock.
For offense: two nail-studded cudgels, a long dirk, a sling with bullets, a fancy stiletto, a couple of plain but well-made short swords, and what looks like an Sithican ogre's meat cleaver (a strong man can use that with both hands).
For defense: a slightly-rusty mail shirt with a stained gambeson, two quilted jerkins, three iron caps, a buckler, a gorget, and a studded leather jack.
Between these purchases and the scanty armament the men already possessed, Alain's ten hirelings are now better equipped than the average street gang.
Even the linkboys have small weapons.

With his team assembled and equipped, Alain heads for the particular building he's got in mind, in a semi-deserted quarter of the city. It's a place he has visited only once before, but which he recalls has certain physical qualities that might be well-suited to the work he means to do in Pont-a-Mouseau.


Wat strides along with his old friend, down the shadowy lane that runs south. They travel below the cloud, though its position seems to shift slowly over the western city, and not necessarily the way the wind blows.
Wat says,
"Alain, you said you this place was sort of tied with my country, with The Wood of Wol--"
He stutters. ''The Wood, where she ruled. I don't understand that.
And what's this old ruin called again?"

Thom's Mansion:

Raen dressed elegantly arrives. He takes his time checking the gardens before he goes to the house and then looks around at the elegant room he's admitted at. He gives a box of sweets to the servants admitting him although he realizes they're probably of lesser quality than his host is used to.

alhoon wrote:Thom's Mansion:

Raen dressed elegantly arrives. He takes his time checking the gardens before he goes to the house and then looks around at the elegant room he's admitted at. He gives a box of sweets to the servants admitting him although he realizes they're probably of lesser quality than his host is used to.

PARLOR

Servants guide Raen into a candlelit- parlor with windows that upon onto a view of the sloping grounds.
Benn, Charlotte, and Sara are already in the parlor (unless one wandered off after arriving at the manse).


Dorgio--if he's coming-- hasn't yet arrived and so is NOT in the parlor.

The eldest of the several footmen, a middle-aged man with impeccable manners, says,
''My master has been informed of your arrival, dear guests, and I expect he will come to greet you shortly. If there's anything you need, let one of us know and we'll see to it.''

Bennedict pours a brandy for himself from a serving tray in the waiting room, taking a sip and smiling over it to Charlotte.

"We'll discuss it when you return," he says. He looks around to the others, holding his walking stick planted firmly in front of him. "Has anyone had a productive afteronoon?

Kat turns up in the same dress she wore to Benedict's house, with no weaponry that she presents to the servants. She greets them politely, and smiles as she admires the house, but those who know her well may not be convinced that the place is making a good impression on her.

If shown in to the parlour she is quite quiet, responding to Benn query with only "I had to do a bit of work. I was thinking of nipping into the ashy area to get samples for the alchemist. Good idea, you think?"

KAT


foyer, near the closet

kintire wrote:Kat turns up in the same dress she wore to Benedict's house, with no weaponry that she presents to the servants. She greets them politely, and smiles as she admires the house, but those who know her well may not be convinced that the place is making a good impression on her.

If shown in to the parlour she is quite quiet, responding to Benn query with only "I had to do a bit of work. I was thinking of nipping into the ashy area to get samples for the alchemist. Good idea, you think?"

Before she's shown into the parlor that opens up beyond the entry hall, one of the footmen reopens the closet where the others have stored weapons.
The footman's eyes shift to the spot where Kat's concealed a certain object in her dress--something that's worked loose and now presents a slight bump. But only a trained and observant man would have noticed.

The thin, poker-faced servant says in a voice low enough not to carry into the parlor,
"Perhaps mademoiselle has forgotten to place an item in the closet?"

THOM'S MANSE

Dorgio arrives with Lorna and Sandor, and he feels a rare pang of jealousy as he surveys his friend's estate. The priest has never been much for creature comforts, but looking at the house makes him wonder if he's doing enough for his family--the family he'll soon be sending away. For their own good of course, or at least, he hopes.