The Eye of Anubis: Book Ten

[NeoTiamat]

Stables, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:27 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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It is probably all attitude. Charles ventures to give Flea a pat on the shoulder before replying (wishing for a carrot or an apple as he does--rare is the horse than can resist a treat). "I've heard a little about the Valachani stock. My father is breeding some Vaasi lines, actually; they don't export much breeding stock, but he's got connections. I don't know if anyone in our group mentioned it, but I think your troubles with the Akiri are being engineered--much like the little charade this afternoon."

Attitude did not seem to be quite enough. The night-black horse nipped at Charles's hand, which the mathematician was barely able to jerk back in time to avoid losing a digit or two. Lebrecht frowned and gave the horse a light slap on the shoulder, which Flea accepted with an evil glare at Charles.

"Stop that." Lieutenant Schiffer said sternly. He did, however, listen to what Charles said. The Falkovnian officer was silent for a few moments, then asked only two questions. "Who? And why?"

Kitchens, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:27 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"No coffee?" Mandisa said, ceasing her attempts to pick up the clay pot. She also managed to successfully put the sandal on. "Um... I can find some food for you, yes."

Mandisa put the kettle onto the little fire and started rooting around the various cabinets and pots, muttering under her breath as she did so. She had something special in mind. Finally, out of one cabinet, she pulled out something that resembled a rag-wrapped sausage. A rapid exchange of utterly unintelligible Akiri followed with the baker that resulted in Mandisa grabbing two pieces of flat bread from the oven, still a little warm. Tossing them from hand to hand to cool, Mandisa scurried back to the table with the sausage, cutting it in half with a somewhat dull knife. Wrapping each half of the sausage in some bread, she proudly presented them to Otto and Tomas.

"I asked the soldiers about what the foreigners eat, and made it myself." Mandisa smiled shyly at Tomas, eyes cast down, though it was readily apparent that the Akiri girl was proud of her cooking. "It is the... Nak-worst, I think you say, they said it was a preserved sausage."

For some reason, the sausages seemed to be coated in salt crystals.

[DocBeard]

"Oh, well, thank you..." Tomas drawls, giving a nervous look to Otto and recalling the cheese coffee. Still, it's the closest thing to friendly that anyone's treated them here, and Tomas won't spoil that by being honest about a woman's cooking. It wouldn't be proper!

And then he actually sees the sausage.

"...this looks..." A pause. "Delicious!" A lie, "But of course I would not dream of starting before my elder, as ist our quaint Lamordian custom." Tomas smiles innocently at Otto.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Charles returns the evil glare with a dignified and friendly unintimidated epxression--can't let 'em know you're afraid, although, Merciful Ezra, nothing that eats grass should have teeth like that--and says, "We've had a...hanger-on...from the very first. He (if it is a he) calls himself John Lancaster Cavendish; he's a necromancer and either a shapeshifter or a magician powerful enough to change his form readily. Getting you and the Muhari here to kill each other is the kind of thing he would consider amusing; it also has a certain practical value, in that it keeps you and us distracted while he arranges things to his own advantage. He intends to find the Tomb of Menetnashte and loot it himself, as far as we can discover his motives. Killing a lot of innocent people along the way is an entertaining side line of business for him."

[The Whistler]

To be a Lamordian, at best, means that one is indifferent about food. To be a *chubby* Lamordian, well...

True to his heritage, Otto was not a gourmet--much the opposite. Indeed, among his friends at the University, the gunsmith had acquired the dubious reputation of having the laxest culinary standards. Thirty years spent choking down sauerkraut and cured pork will do a lot to shock one's taste buds into submission, and Herr Schultheiss had long since reached the point where *anything* tasted OK by comparison--hence his figure.

Put it this way. There used to be a crowd of ethnic food carts set up on one of the plazas near U. Dementlieu--the vendors would come in for the lunch rush and make a solar or two off the graduate students. One of the carts was smaller then the others, and greyer, and it was staffed by a small, grey man named De Wyndt. While his neighbors made coin hand over fist, De Wyndt tended to come up short week after week. Needless to say, it confused him: after all, he *was* the best Ghastrian chef in all Port-A-Lucine.

During his tenure in Dementlieu, Otto singlehandedly kept De Wyndt in business for six months. Sure, the collection agents eventually repossessed De Wyndt's cart and broke his kneecaps, but until then, hey: the gunsmith thought it was the most "refreshingly uncluttered" stuff he'd eaten in recent memory.

All of which is to say that the gunsmith was the *right* person to hand a mummified knockwurst to, at the moment.

"Ah, yes! 'Quaint Lamordian custom, indeed.'" Otto shot Tomas a loaded glance, still smiling pleasantly--he wasn't a gourmet, but he wasn't stupid, either. "Thank you very much for accommodating our tastes, Miss; always it is good to have a reminder of our lands."

The gunsmith chiseled off some of the salt with a fingernail, steeled himself mentally, and took an outwardly enthusiastic bite. It *was* reminiscent of home, in a way: he used kerosene all the time while doing rifle repairs.

"Excellent." Grin. "Lamb, is it...?"

...Because I really can't be sure.

[NeoTiamat]

Stables, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:32 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"A sadist then. A shapeshifting, magic-using sadist." Lieutenant Schiffer said heavily. Flea, for his part, looked quite pleased with Charles's temporary retreat. "Any idea how to find the man? How to fight him?"

Kitchens, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:27 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"Lamb, yes." Mandisa nodded, cheering up a little at the two Lamordian's obvious enjoyment of the food. After all, they didn't act too scary, and they liked the nak-worst, so this was a good sign! This put the interaction on a level that Mandisa could grasp. "Would you like anything else?"

She glanced at the sausage then back at Tomas, her large, liquid brown eyes reflecting nothing but honesty, openness, and the expectation that Tomas was about to bite into his sausage.

[DocBeard]

Where are you when I need you, all powerful Atheismo?!

Tomas looks weakly from one expectant gaze to another, now seeing the subtle flaw in his plan, that being that he would have to take a turn eventually. "Well, if Otto's had his fair share..." Tomas trails off.

Cuts into it.

And.

well.

It's a crime against sausage, but somehow, Tomas forces a grin on his face as he chews through the salty, dry mess. "Est tasten just like home!" Tomas lies through his teeth, smiling a little.

[Kaitou Kage]

"Well, get me the herbs and offerings in the morning and I'll do what I can," Kuzan said, "I'll give you some of my money in the morning and let you know how much credit I should have. If there's nothing else tonight, then, I'm going to grab some food and head to the barracks to find out what the others know."

And if there is nothing else, the priest turns and walks off to the barracks.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Lia turns to Andre. "Well," she mutters, "with that little wrinkle semi-settled ... Perhaps we should have a chat with the soldier who was impersonated. Cavendish must have studied him in order to be able to mimic him carefully enough to fool his comrades, but I wonder how, in what guise? We might find some clues to track him to his point of entry into Muhar, maybe even to whatever place he calls lair while he's here. What do you think?"

[Nathan of the FoS]

"A sadist then. A shapeshifting, magic-using sadist." Lieutenant Schiffer said heavily. Flea, for his part, looked quite pleased with Charles's temporary retreat. "Any idea how to find the man? How to fight him?"

"That about sums it up, yes. He tends to gravitate to graveyards--whether for necromantic purposes or morbid tastes or both. No shortage of those around here, of course. He's got companions, or did the last time we met him, who it might be easier to find...skeletal cats the size of horses. He's hardly invulnerable--I've seen him damaged with ordinary weapons, although I think he is probably more dangerous as a spellslinger than anyone we have in our party. The real trouble is coming to grips with him--and keeping him from disappearing once he's brought to bay."

[NeoTiamat]

Stables, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:36 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"The Kommandant is no slouch as a mage either, plus we've a few anti-mage tactics." Lebrecht said after a moment. The Falkovnian sighed, reaching up to pet Flea's nose. The horse gave a kind of huff sound, but seemed to even enjoy it. "But a mage we can't find? How do you fight what you're not even sure is there?"

"Any tell-tale signs this Cavendish uses?" Lieutenant Schiffer asked. "Any way to tell if he's actually here, or if this is just paranoia?"

Kitchens, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:36 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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"I'm glad you like it." Mandisa smiled shyly, her dusky-skinned face near bursting with pride. Someone actually liked her cooking! This was an event to go down for the history books. Flushed with confidence, the Akiri girl ventured a comment. "The... kammandant said I was not to go near the soup, but I thought that well, since you were from a different land, maybe you'd want something homey?"

"Um... meaning no disrespect, sirs," Mandisa's confidence evaporated like a burst soap-bubble as she realized she was offering comments to a significant social superior. And more to the point, a pair of well-armed social superiors. "I didn't mean to be rude, I just wanted to help."

Mandisa back-pedaled away, not quite consciously, just wanting to put some distance and some implements of honest labor between her and the two Lamordians. Unfortunately, for a person of Mandisa's generall agility... there was a counter, a tray of silver-ware, and a resounding crash.

The girl squeaked and tripped as the silverware clattered all over, including one knife that drew a long, ragged cut across her palm. Mandisa sat up, biting her lip at the pain and clutching her wounded hand by the wrist. The cut certainly looked unpleasant, shallow but bloody.

Then... as Tomas and Otto watched, it began to heal. The skin moved back together, and the edges of the cut began to meld into a single, unbroken whole. There was a scar then, an ugly white thing against Mandisa's skin, but then it too gradually faded away.

Mandisa looked at her hand, then glanced back at the two Lamordians, the only two people in the kitchen who could have seen the healing. And in the Akiri girl's eyes was sheer, stark terror.

The rest of the kitchen staff glanced over at the downed Akiri girl, but seeing as Mandisa appeared to be sitting up and alright, turned back to their work. This was not, it seemed, a new sight in the kitchens.

"O-o-oh.... so sorry." Mandisa stuttered, trying to get up, look around (either for the tray or for a place to hide), and act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "I'm so sorry, I'm just clumsy. L-l-let me clean this up."

She began to cry slightly, tears of terror running down her cheeks as she started picking up the silverware.

Barrack, Falkovnian Compound, Muhar, Har'Akir
August 26th, 761, 7:36 PM; Day 162 of the Menetnashte Expedition
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You found Hermann guarding the stairwell of the barracks, actually, a tall, broad-shouldered brick of a man. with a jagged scar on his chin. He was alert, like most of the Falkovnians, and not particularly impressed with the group he found before him.

"Want something?" The big soldier said, eyeing the group warily. His eyes settled on Sascha, and Hermann frowned. "Do I know you?"

[lostboy]

Sascha had remained silent as the returned to the compound, the sight of the staked bodies still profoundly disturbed him, and he had little desire to discuss anything with the Falkovnians around him.

Although now it appeared his hand was to be forced by fate.

"Want something?" The big soldier said, eyeing the group warily. His eyes settled on Sascha, and Hermann frowned. "Do I know you?"

Sascha stares at the man in silence for a moment or two longer than is comfortable, a strange tick affecting the corner of his eye. Finally he swallows slowly, his face a decideedly paler shade than normal and replies in an odd voice that sounds like he's struggling to force breath into his lungs.

"Now why would you think that?"

[Nathan of the FoS]

"Any tell-tale signs this Cavendish uses?" Lieutenant Schiffer asked. "Any way to tell if he's actually here, or if this is just paranoia?"

"Well. He wants to get to the same place we do. He has been dogging our steps (or perhaps going on ahead of us) at least since we passed through Barovia. You've had a "replacement" with Hermann this very afternoon--a trick he's tried before, with great success. To cap off, as we returned this evening an Akiri woman summoned us to see "something interesting"--that "something" being a group of four murdered Akiris. She then promptly slit her own throat. No hesitation, no trial cuts, just up and through. That's not normal, even for someone pretty determined to commit suicide. Forcing "suicides" is another of his favorite games. Short of actually seeing him--and he a shape-shifter, maybe I have--I don't think we could have stronger evidence of his being here."

[DocBeard]

Well, there goes their progress...

Tomas blinks, then, as...well, that happens. His mouth is open, and to best describe the thought process, we shall describe it as an argument;

The kind, gentle Tomas holds his arm out, a baby owl landing on it and rubbing its head affectionately against his palm. "That poor girl. Wasn't that us not so long ago?"

"It was us last week." A gruffer, better armored Tomas mentions, idly snapping the neck of a cartoonishly proportioned vampire(Who dies with a 'Blah!'), "She ain't a werewolf, or that's fake silver. Undead don't usually regrow 'at quick."

"Maybe she's like us. Didn't Uffington figure out what we were when we cut ourselves?" Kindly old Tomas embraces a pair of massive Golden Retrievers, roughly scratching their heads and puffing on a bubble-pipe. "We should help her, at any rate."

"Yeah, we've met so many people like that." Tomas, warrior prince, exclaims, kicking through a horrible winged ghost and chopping the head off of an unliving treant. "She's trouble! Chop her head off, no one'll care."

"We will."

"...fair enough."

In reality, Tomas bawks for a second, shakes his head, and kneels down, silently helping the girl clean up. He privately hopes Otto comes up with something brilliant to say.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Lia eyes the Falkovnian soldier coolly, but without overt hostility. "We do want something, yes," she says. "You are the soldier who was impersonated today. Had you had any odd experiences lately? Did someone show more interest in your person than is otherwise usual? It seems likely that you had been targeted by a shapeshifter."

[The Whistler]

Otto, Fey-Touched Guardian of the Wolves, is really no better at this than Tomas: for one thing, he's had to figure his "issues" out from scratch, and for another, spontaneous healing powers aren't precisely in his bailiwick. On the other hand, he *does* have one thing that Tomas might not: three years experience dealing with a magically gifted teenager.

...Delicate subject. Nobody wants to be outed against their will, but everyone deserves to know that they have a support system. Poor girl probably thinks she's alone in the world. So: go at it obliquely...

Otto stoops to help clean up the dishes, waving down Mandisa's protests--and somehow managing to organize them by size and color as he does so.

"Really, it is no problem." He emphasizes the words carefully, trying to make eye contact. "This? It is happening to more people than one might imagine." He indicates the dishes with a hand gesture, but his tone says different.

...And hope Tomas backs you up.