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[5E] The Age of Worms - Solid Snake's Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Alexander Bryant1" data-source="post: 7332919" data-attributes="member: 6916184"><p><strong>Journal of Etona, Entry 14</strong></p><p></p><p>My impressions of this city have been mixed: there is the stench and disease of humans living in filth and poverty, but other shinier parts fairly drip with greed and self-interest. A less empathetic place I have never been to. I cannot decide if Hell is modeled after Greyhawk or vice versa.</p><p></p><p>After being attacked by another carpet of <em>muercur</em> – why are beetles so interested in me? did I offend? how does one offend insects? – we are off to a new place, an off-kilter lodging called the Crooked Inn run by husband-and-wife gnomes named <strong>Graf</strong> and <strong>Sarfina</strong>. It is at the periphery of the Foreign Quarter. From there I send a missive asking to meet the representative, Krisn, again so that we might discuss further the attack. Greyhawk officials “investigating” the “incident” are oddly incurious about a magical swarm of giant bugs attacking their own officials. We did received a note but not about this: it asks us to come mid-morning to the Elgios estate, and that we will be provided a carriage.</p><p></p><p>When we arrive at the grand, luxurious manor, we are brought to Elgios himself and his guest, human political leader Thran Chosik, our would-be patron. We speak of the investigation and the arena. He wishes us to purchase his conscience rather than merely following it for free. We are thus to participate in that hallowed old Orcish activity of fighting in front of cheering, bloodthirsty imbeciles as a front for investigating whether other gladiators are engaging in something deleterious to this man’s career. Mr. Chosik’s suspicions rest on the meteoric rise of the influence of one former gladiator named Lorus, a fighter who has gathered undue influence among the council.</p><p></p><p>“You are asking the priestess of Sehanine to participate in this base sport so you can find out whether you have a political rival? And our reward is your doing something faintly noble if it isn’t too expensive or inconvenient? I think not.”</p><p></p><p>“Lady Aspianne,” says Mel with what took me a moment to realize was worry on her face. I had never seen it there before. “Arma’s son, Kragan, may be down there. This would be a great chance to question him about Phreet as part of your investigation.”</p><p></p><p>“Even if I wanted to debase myself in front of your horde, my Mistress would never permit it. I will end up a thieving street urchin again if I so much as set foot in your pits of barbarism. No. Surely,” I address myself to the human, “there is something else I can lend my talents to?” I soften my voice. "<em>Anything</em> else?”</p><p></p><p>He does not take the hint and in fact says, “That is disappointing. We had heard –. Well, your reputation had preceded you. I am sorry it was incorrect. Perhaps we can find a use for you somewhere else.”</p><p></p><p>A use for me.</p><p></p><p>I am glad Verdre was not here to hear that. The meeting would have ended much more dramatically.</p><p></p><p>When we returned, I shook off the insult by spending pent the rest of the evening at the Crooked Inn having dinner and enjoying the entertainment: an Elven dancer named Coralina performing with Drummer, her mute, half-orc band member and friend, I think, who of course plays the drums. I spoke with her “between sets”, the human term for when they ended a flight. I found she knows nothing of our people, having been brought up wholly in Greyhawk and infused with its culture. But she is friendly, if timid, and I think I can teach her if I do not use so many words next time.</p><p></p><p>Screams outside just as the inn was set to close its doors. A dead body across the street, fallen from a small balcony.</p><p></p><p>It is an art dealer named Svan. His death was not from the fall: he was repeatedly stabbed and, a notable detail, a strip of his skin was removed near his collarbone. He had been pushed from his second-story apartment by his attacker.</p><p></p><p>And here is great Watch of Greyhawk sullenly mobilizing to get through the tiresome process of asking rote questions about yet another in an endless parade of deaths of this city’s hapless citizens. Mel volunteers to take over the case in order to secure temporary reinstatement to this august body of tireless defenders – it will advantageous in the future, she says – and so the investigation is gratefully tossed into our laps with a “Feel free to call us never!” sigh of relief from whomever it was who had first appeared. Victor? Vermouth? Venezuela? It could not possibly matter.</p><p></p><p>Up in Svan’s apartment, the door was locked but his window was open, so entrance was either through there or from the balcony, both of them unlikely. A detail: there was a little bit of mealy flour near his balcony. It seemed to have nothing to do with any food in the place nor on Svan’s person.</p><p></p><p>Svan’s neighbor on the ground floor, a blacksmith, had no idea what had happened and had neither heard nor seen anything. Rey had no tracks to work with that weren’t instantly buried by the city traffic. There was no other flour anywhere. We thus headed to a nearby bakery.</p><p></p><p>Kroga is a surly, ugly, but passionate baker who instantly derided as literal garbage the flour I poured in front of him. I believe he was alarmed at its even touching something in his establishment. At my urging, and some coin, he agreed to investigate the distributor of this flour. He may have been more open to this because I also ordered seven silver-frosted cakes that together will form the shape of a crescent moon for the upcoming New Moon gathering.</p><p></p><p>That reminds me, I will need fruits, meats and bread as well as pure, clean water there as well.</p><p></p><p>We return to the Crooked Inn to find Borgo the cook missing: he had run off for the night leaving Sarfina to prepare dinner, a task she was about as suited for as I would be for promoting the virtues of this city to outsiders, so Rey and I took over and managed to craft a superb meal out of the wreckage of stranded ingredients, if the acclamation from the dining room was any judge. I took to cleaning the place and myself thoroughly afterwards during which Rey and Mel went off to Borgo’s house.</p><p></p><p>I am quickly brought back word: Borgo is also dead, murdered via a cut throat. A patch of skin is missing from his chest. The perpetrator clearly picked the lock from the outside, an impressively difficult task. And the same flour is there.</p><p></p><p>It is the same killer. But why? What have these people in common?</p><p></p><p>Borgo’s downstairs neighbor is a very poor priest of Pelor. His calm demeanor is placid as he tells us he does not know what happened up there, though Svan and Borgo did share a link: they had been part of the Peace Circus together.</p><p></p><p><em>Resh!</em> Many many curse words!</p><p></p><p>The Peace Circus was the very same menagerie that I and others released animals from two years ago. I had known the group was taking in a lot of money, but I did not know that many, perhaps all, of the owners were orphans who had banded together to put on what they thought was a merry and delightful circus.</p><p></p><p>What had possessed me (save for the handsome leader of the group)? Honestly, that was an insane act!</p><p></p><p>Oh yes, I remember now. <em>Dors'e feu</em>. It had happened over full moon.</p><p></p><p>Well, the Peace Circus, animals gone, had to purchase more, but it had taken much time and money to assemble what they had, so this time around they hired more dangerous animals. They did well with that for a while until the giant raptors had gotten loose somehow and attacked people, killing a small girl. The priest recalled that a woman had literally offered herself up to the monster that was going for the child, but it had taken merely a deep bite out of the woman’s arm, thrown her aside and carried on to the girl. In the end they all had to be put down, and the Peace Circus dissolved.</p><p></p><p>Coralina had also been a member of the Circus.</p><p></p><p>This is all stunning news, almost too much to take in. I wander for a time finding myself at door of my tribe’s lay priest, Estee. I tell him everything. He hears me. He understands. He allows me to move past the wall of briar this news hurled me into, and I leave calm again but resolute. Today we will need to speak to Coralina and see if she knows anything, perhaps some double-crossing that set one Circus member on another.</p><p></p><p>But first, my Mistress’s face is in <em>quenae’wek</em>, thin and wan, a time for traps and deceit. She favors us with Her hunter’s visage. Only in these past few spins of seasons have I truly understood what that meant. My sickly childhood had molded me before then, but now I, too, have hunted to stay alive. I am stronger, and I have killed to survive. I feel within me this face at last. </p><p></p><p>And I know what it means to prey.</p><p></p><p>I descend into the poor quarter down at the docks, to humans who derive no satisfaction from Her waning. I spend most of the arc there helping people who will accept, which fear and suspicion keep to a handful. I heal where I can with herbs and remedies. I invite any who spoke to me to the <em>dobrun du’uin</em>, the New Moon ceremony three nights hence.</p><p></p><p>Dawn brings new responsibilities for me. I travel to the early markets to purchase everything we will need for the Crooked Inn’s breakfast and then lend my hand to the meal. Sarfina is up and ready to help me. I forgot potatoes! No, she says, and heads into the basement to get at their stores there.</p><p></p><p>Her screams rise up the stairs.</p><p></p><p>She found a hacked-up body: it is the half-orc drummer.</p><p></p><p>Drummer was custodian for the inn and so slept down in the basement when not working, playing or out in the city. His had been a gentle soul. I will mourn for him during the ceremony.</p><p></p><p>Rey is conjured by the screams. She grimly examines him: he will be an unresolved issue for her, this calm being of music who also happened to be half-orc, now butchered before she could understand him. She points out the same strip of skin missing, though located in a different place. I find the fatal wound – a furious ax blow to the neck followed by hacking until the orc was in pieces. Blood flow, stiffness of the joints and one or two other indicators tell me this happened while I was purchasing ingredients for my friends and the rest of the dayside beings’ morning meals.</p><p></p><p>Everywhere shelves are overturned: the place is a shambles. All of it is quite unlike the previous two murders, save for the missing skin patch.</p><p></p><p>Two other details: there is a bloody hand print of three fingers on the cellar wall at the base of the stairs. Bloody footprints eventually “peter out” to nothing (I think it’s a Dwarven term associated with mining) after the assassin removed te’s boots and then crossed water to re-emerge somewhere else.</p><p></p><p>The other detail: Drummer was a member of the Peace Circus. Coralina’s husband, Rocktar, is also a member.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>I take Coralina to the Temple where I can talk to her about the Circus. I learn the following points:</p><p></p><p>Coralina was employed to dance before the raptor act</p><p>Rocktar is her human husband. He hits her sometimes and is generally abusive. This will not not allowed anymore.</p><p>Volin, another human, was the “fearless” raptor trainer</p><p>Coralina is in love with Volin and imagines a life with him even after what happened at the massacre</p><p>The raptors became more feral, but since Volin was an expert no one mentioned it to him</p><p></p><p>During the fateful last show, held in an intimate setting just outside Greyhawk, spectators could see and touch the raptors for free. Volin had not chained any of them, but he had felt it was safe to have them loose. A child dropped something and the raptors attacked. The circus members escaped unscathed, though the child’s mother – shielding her daughter – was maimed and thrown aside. She watched her girl be ripped apart.</p><p></p><p>We elves know something about being dinners for animals. It is uncommon, but sometimes one of us wanders too far afield, alone, is unwise, and falls back into the great chain of life, though this has usually been by something unnatural as native predators tend to leave us be. They know we are competition, but they also know of our respect, and of course that we come from Fae.</p><p></p><p>But to watch a son or daughter be killed in such a manner, surrounded by people in what is supposed to be a safe place: what would that do a parent? I cannot imagine, but perhaps the humans can, immersed as they are by misery through their short march of days to death.</p><p></p><p>The garrison came and killed the raptors.</p><p></p><p>Somehow, given this happened on “human soil”, none of the Peace Circus spent any time in one of their prisons.</p><p></p><p>Coralina went on to talk about what she had seen in the attack last night on Borgo: a woman with white-silver hair climbed the wall like an insect, passed through the window to leave but a moment later. She had white eyes that looked right at her as she slipped away. Coralina had been with Volin at the time, in Volin’s bed, actually, the latter asleep but she awake.</p><p></p><p>While my conversation with Coralina was happening, Rey and Mel were dealing with Lucien and Rocktar. Lucien had three fingers to match the blood spatter, but it was very clear after talking to him and also comparing his large hands to the small impression made in the cellar that he was not a suspect. No one else knows who else might have a three-fingered hand.</p><p></p><p>Mel addresses us when we return. She takes the oddly formal tone I heard back at Elgios’s house: “Indeed, perhaps we need to consider increasing our security for the Lady Aspianne of the Mirror as well.”</p><p></p><p>Lady Aspianne?</p><p></p><p>Nodding to Coralina, she continues: “If you have a place to go out of town, we can arrange a carriage. You don’t need to take Rocktar. I certainly don’t know who you might take, but perhaps your amorous friend would be willing to support your jaunt in the country.” Mel offers gold to get Coralina a carriage out of town as soon as tonight, and sets to putting her up somewhere beyond Three Mile Mill.</p><p></p><p>“Melinde,” I venture, “I believe I can take care of myself with regards to having actual guards. Perhaps I could in fact be bait. I agree that Coralina and, separately, her husband need to become hidden. As we also need to speak to Volin, we will potentially place him into hiding as well.”</p><p></p><p>“If we could talk more privately for a moment, Lady Aspianne,” says Mel, “perhaps we could consider alternatives.”</p><p></p><p>Away from Coralina, Mel seems very serious for a moment but then she shrugs it off in that way of hers. “Until we made the connection with the changeling, I had wondered about Phreet’s look-alike gang and their disappearance, but now I think these murders may be connected. Etona, I think they will try to apply pressure to you using Phreet as ransom, and if you don’t comply you may be at risk of being killed and mimicked next. I don’t know who or why, but that’s my hunch.”</p><p></p><p>Rey looks at me. “You are NOT to be bait. Absolutely not. Maybe you can go away with the girl.”</p><p></p><p>It is outrageous their protecting me like this, but also sweet. I have to stop myself from hugging Rey.</p><p></p><p>She goes on, switching to Mel: “And how are they using Phreet as ransom if they haven't even contacted Etona? Am I missing something?”</p><p></p><p>“I think we all are,” replies Mel. “Your guess is probably as good as mine. No one has tried to leverage anything against her yet, but trust me: if Phreet isn’t already dead, she will be used as a bargaining chip.” She muses, “I wonder . . . If Councilman Chozik is going to be the target, or possibly Elgios? I think we would be no match for either of them: their enemies may simply need someone to weaken them, and I assume you wouldn’t think twice choosing between Thran and Phreet?” she finishes, looking at me.</p><p></p><p>I just look at her.</p><p></p><p>“These plans,” I say instead, “seem to me to be very complex and expensive. We have only been here a few days, and we were not expected more than a few before that. Unless we were lured here by the councilman and all of his overtures about Diamond Lake are a hoax, I don’t understand how anyone could both know I was going to be here and then engineer this chancy series of kidnappings and murder. Furthermore, they are using changelings who must be difficult to locate, knowing as they do that they would be killed upon being caught which is a growing likelihood as these slayings stack up like cords of wood.”</p><p></p><p>“Mm. On the changelings, here is something to think about,” says Mel as she twiddles her small gold lightning bolt amulet of Heironeous, “I possess a blessing that creates a zone of truth around me. I can sense anyone who is lying so we have an indirect means of verifying identity. We only need to ask: are you _______? If the changeling lies or refuses to answer . . . well. However, the magic only lasts an hour or so.”</p><p></p><p>We return to the young elf. “Miss Coralina, if we keep Rocktar busy, would you allow Lady Aspianne to accompany you to Volin’s to make a plan for the two of you?” Mel gives me another deferential nod and hands me a pouch of gold.</p><p></p><p>I am not interested in titles, but this deference is nice, I suppose, particularly when I make the effort to dress the part, though it is clear she is playing her own part now and doing it convincingly, too.</p><p></p><p>The act may have put off Rey. She sidled up to Rishkar and whispered, “Does Mel still smell the same? Did we leave her alone with anyone?”</p><p></p><p>Mel overheard and looks stung. “I have Heironeous’ blessing to prove my worth.” She raises her mace and speaks the holy words of the astral tongue and the mace flares with golden light. “Let’s see a changeling do that.”</p><p></p><p>Rey visibly relaxes and murmurs an apology to Mel. She shrugs and addresses Coralina. “What do you say? How about a visit to Volin?”</p><p></p><p>Coralina nods her head in agreement.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>We convince Rocktar to remain at his home while we escort Coralina away. We tell him she will be gone for some time, but he does not know it may potentially be with Volin, to whose house we travel now.</p><p></p><p>Volin is a thin, slightly oily human who cooperates readily enough. A short talk with him revealed confidence in his own martial skills and an ownership, no, a . . .</p><p></p><p>In my own tongue it is <em>limri</em>. The Common for it is 'condescing', no, 'condensation'. No. That is rain and snow. An attitude of, of <em>condescension</em>. Yes, that is what these people show towards her. Two very different men treat Coralina as one would react to a stray animal that had decided to live in their homes. My own conversations with her reveal a lost girl drifting with the waves of events. Some people are like this, but I wonder if she has ever had the opportunity to swim on her own. Perhaps, when this is over, we can travel together for a time and I can teach what it means to have the blood of the Fae in her veins.</p><p></p><p>At any rate, when the attacks are more graphically described, he agreed to leave town immediately with Coralina.</p><p></p><p>With them safely away, we lay a trap for the changeling. Rocktar will be the bait, remaining in his second-floor apartment. I will be in the closet, and Rey and Rishkar will be nearby down below on the street. I have rigged the window to gently alert me if it is opened from the outside but also to shine a half-moon on the wall through using a glass and gently tuning my own light spell. She shall not miss it.</p><p></p><p>We wait as night draws across.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alexander Bryant1, post: 7332919, member: 6916184"] [b]Journal of Etona, Entry 14[/b] My impressions of this city have been mixed: there is the stench and disease of humans living in filth and poverty, but other shinier parts fairly drip with greed and self-interest. A less empathetic place I have never been to. I cannot decide if Hell is modeled after Greyhawk or vice versa. After being attacked by another carpet of [I]muercur[/I] – why are beetles so interested in me? did I offend? how does one offend insects? – we are off to a new place, an off-kilter lodging called the Crooked Inn run by husband-and-wife gnomes named [B]Graf[/B] and [B]Sarfina[/B]. It is at the periphery of the Foreign Quarter. From there I send a missive asking to meet the representative, Krisn, again so that we might discuss further the attack. Greyhawk officials “investigating” the “incident” are oddly incurious about a magical swarm of giant bugs attacking their own officials. We did received a note but not about this: it asks us to come mid-morning to the Elgios estate, and that we will be provided a carriage. When we arrive at the grand, luxurious manor, we are brought to Elgios himself and his guest, human political leader Thran Chosik, our would-be patron. We speak of the investigation and the arena. He wishes us to purchase his conscience rather than merely following it for free. We are thus to participate in that hallowed old Orcish activity of fighting in front of cheering, bloodthirsty imbeciles as a front for investigating whether other gladiators are engaging in something deleterious to this man’s career. Mr. Chosik’s suspicions rest on the meteoric rise of the influence of one former gladiator named Lorus, a fighter who has gathered undue influence among the council. “You are asking the priestess of Sehanine to participate in this base sport so you can find out whether you have a political rival? And our reward is your doing something faintly noble if it isn’t too expensive or inconvenient? I think not.” “Lady Aspianne,” says Mel with what took me a moment to realize was worry on her face. I had never seen it there before. “Arma’s son, Kragan, may be down there. This would be a great chance to question him about Phreet as part of your investigation.” “Even if I wanted to debase myself in front of your horde, my Mistress would never permit it. I will end up a thieving street urchin again if I so much as set foot in your pits of barbarism. No. Surely,” I address myself to the human, “there is something else I can lend my talents to?” I soften my voice. "[I]Anything[/I] else?” He does not take the hint and in fact says, “That is disappointing. We had heard –. Well, your reputation had preceded you. I am sorry it was incorrect. Perhaps we can find a use for you somewhere else.” A use for me. I am glad Verdre was not here to hear that. The meeting would have ended much more dramatically. When we returned, I shook off the insult by spending pent the rest of the evening at the Crooked Inn having dinner and enjoying the entertainment: an Elven dancer named Coralina performing with Drummer, her mute, half-orc band member and friend, I think, who of course plays the drums. I spoke with her “between sets”, the human term for when they ended a flight. I found she knows nothing of our people, having been brought up wholly in Greyhawk and infused with its culture. But she is friendly, if timid, and I think I can teach her if I do not use so many words next time. Screams outside just as the inn was set to close its doors. A dead body across the street, fallen from a small balcony. It is an art dealer named Svan. His death was not from the fall: he was repeatedly stabbed and, a notable detail, a strip of his skin was removed near his collarbone. He had been pushed from his second-story apartment by his attacker. And here is great Watch of Greyhawk sullenly mobilizing to get through the tiresome process of asking rote questions about yet another in an endless parade of deaths of this city’s hapless citizens. Mel volunteers to take over the case in order to secure temporary reinstatement to this august body of tireless defenders – it will advantageous in the future, she says – and so the investigation is gratefully tossed into our laps with a “Feel free to call us never!” sigh of relief from whomever it was who had first appeared. Victor? Vermouth? Venezuela? It could not possibly matter. Up in Svan’s apartment, the door was locked but his window was open, so entrance was either through there or from the balcony, both of them unlikely. A detail: there was a little bit of mealy flour near his balcony. It seemed to have nothing to do with any food in the place nor on Svan’s person. Svan’s neighbor on the ground floor, a blacksmith, had no idea what had happened and had neither heard nor seen anything. Rey had no tracks to work with that weren’t instantly buried by the city traffic. There was no other flour anywhere. We thus headed to a nearby bakery. Kroga is a surly, ugly, but passionate baker who instantly derided as literal garbage the flour I poured in front of him. I believe he was alarmed at its even touching something in his establishment. At my urging, and some coin, he agreed to investigate the distributor of this flour. He may have been more open to this because I also ordered seven silver-frosted cakes that together will form the shape of a crescent moon for the upcoming New Moon gathering. That reminds me, I will need fruits, meats and bread as well as pure, clean water there as well. We return to the Crooked Inn to find Borgo the cook missing: he had run off for the night leaving Sarfina to prepare dinner, a task she was about as suited for as I would be for promoting the virtues of this city to outsiders, so Rey and I took over and managed to craft a superb meal out of the wreckage of stranded ingredients, if the acclamation from the dining room was any judge. I took to cleaning the place and myself thoroughly afterwards during which Rey and Mel went off to Borgo’s house. I am quickly brought back word: Borgo is also dead, murdered via a cut throat. A patch of skin is missing from his chest. The perpetrator clearly picked the lock from the outside, an impressively difficult task. And the same flour is there. It is the same killer. But why? What have these people in common? Borgo’s downstairs neighbor is a very poor priest of Pelor. His calm demeanor is placid as he tells us he does not know what happened up there, though Svan and Borgo did share a link: they had been part of the Peace Circus together. [I]Resh![/I] Many many curse words! The Peace Circus was the very same menagerie that I and others released animals from two years ago. I had known the group was taking in a lot of money, but I did not know that many, perhaps all, of the owners were orphans who had banded together to put on what they thought was a merry and delightful circus. What had possessed me (save for the handsome leader of the group)? Honestly, that was an insane act! Oh yes, I remember now. [I]Dors'e feu[/I]. It had happened over full moon. Well, the Peace Circus, animals gone, had to purchase more, but it had taken much time and money to assemble what they had, so this time around they hired more dangerous animals. They did well with that for a while until the giant raptors had gotten loose somehow and attacked people, killing a small girl. The priest recalled that a woman had literally offered herself up to the monster that was going for the child, but it had taken merely a deep bite out of the woman’s arm, thrown her aside and carried on to the girl. In the end they all had to be put down, and the Peace Circus dissolved. Coralina had also been a member of the Circus. This is all stunning news, almost too much to take in. I wander for a time finding myself at door of my tribe’s lay priest, Estee. I tell him everything. He hears me. He understands. He allows me to move past the wall of briar this news hurled me into, and I leave calm again but resolute. Today we will need to speak to Coralina and see if she knows anything, perhaps some double-crossing that set one Circus member on another. But first, my Mistress’s face is in [I]quenae’wek[/I], thin and wan, a time for traps and deceit. She favors us with Her hunter’s visage. Only in these past few spins of seasons have I truly understood what that meant. My sickly childhood had molded me before then, but now I, too, have hunted to stay alive. I am stronger, and I have killed to survive. I feel within me this face at last. And I know what it means to prey. I descend into the poor quarter down at the docks, to humans who derive no satisfaction from Her waning. I spend most of the arc there helping people who will accept, which fear and suspicion keep to a handful. I heal where I can with herbs and remedies. I invite any who spoke to me to the [I]dobrun du’uin[/I], the New Moon ceremony three nights hence. Dawn brings new responsibilities for me. I travel to the early markets to purchase everything we will need for the Crooked Inn’s breakfast and then lend my hand to the meal. Sarfina is up and ready to help me. I forgot potatoes! No, she says, and heads into the basement to get at their stores there. Her screams rise up the stairs. She found a hacked-up body: it is the half-orc drummer. Drummer was custodian for the inn and so slept down in the basement when not working, playing or out in the city. His had been a gentle soul. I will mourn for him during the ceremony. Rey is conjured by the screams. She grimly examines him: he will be an unresolved issue for her, this calm being of music who also happened to be half-orc, now butchered before she could understand him. She points out the same strip of skin missing, though located in a different place. I find the fatal wound – a furious ax blow to the neck followed by hacking until the orc was in pieces. Blood flow, stiffness of the joints and one or two other indicators tell me this happened while I was purchasing ingredients for my friends and the rest of the dayside beings’ morning meals. Everywhere shelves are overturned: the place is a shambles. All of it is quite unlike the previous two murders, save for the missing skin patch. Two other details: there is a bloody hand print of three fingers on the cellar wall at the base of the stairs. Bloody footprints eventually “peter out” to nothing (I think it’s a Dwarven term associated with mining) after the assassin removed te’s boots and then crossed water to re-emerge somewhere else. The other detail: Drummer was a member of the Peace Circus. Coralina’s husband, Rocktar, is also a member. *** I take Coralina to the Temple where I can talk to her about the Circus. I learn the following points: Coralina was employed to dance before the raptor act Rocktar is her human husband. He hits her sometimes and is generally abusive. This will not not allowed anymore. Volin, another human, was the “fearless” raptor trainer Coralina is in love with Volin and imagines a life with him even after what happened at the massacre The raptors became more feral, but since Volin was an expert no one mentioned it to him During the fateful last show, held in an intimate setting just outside Greyhawk, spectators could see and touch the raptors for free. Volin had not chained any of them, but he had felt it was safe to have them loose. A child dropped something and the raptors attacked. The circus members escaped unscathed, though the child’s mother – shielding her daughter – was maimed and thrown aside. She watched her girl be ripped apart. We elves know something about being dinners for animals. It is uncommon, but sometimes one of us wanders too far afield, alone, is unwise, and falls back into the great chain of life, though this has usually been by something unnatural as native predators tend to leave us be. They know we are competition, but they also know of our respect, and of course that we come from Fae. But to watch a son or daughter be killed in such a manner, surrounded by people in what is supposed to be a safe place: what would that do a parent? I cannot imagine, but perhaps the humans can, immersed as they are by misery through their short march of days to death. The garrison came and killed the raptors. Somehow, given this happened on “human soil”, none of the Peace Circus spent any time in one of their prisons. Coralina went on to talk about what she had seen in the attack last night on Borgo: a woman with white-silver hair climbed the wall like an insect, passed through the window to leave but a moment later. She had white eyes that looked right at her as she slipped away. Coralina had been with Volin at the time, in Volin’s bed, actually, the latter asleep but she awake. While my conversation with Coralina was happening, Rey and Mel were dealing with Lucien and Rocktar. Lucien had three fingers to match the blood spatter, but it was very clear after talking to him and also comparing his large hands to the small impression made in the cellar that he was not a suspect. No one else knows who else might have a three-fingered hand. Mel addresses us when we return. She takes the oddly formal tone I heard back at Elgios’s house: “Indeed, perhaps we need to consider increasing our security for the Lady Aspianne of the Mirror as well.” Lady Aspianne? Nodding to Coralina, she continues: “If you have a place to go out of town, we can arrange a carriage. You don’t need to take Rocktar. I certainly don’t know who you might take, but perhaps your amorous friend would be willing to support your jaunt in the country.” Mel offers gold to get Coralina a carriage out of town as soon as tonight, and sets to putting her up somewhere beyond Three Mile Mill. “Melinde,” I venture, “I believe I can take care of myself with regards to having actual guards. Perhaps I could in fact be bait. I agree that Coralina and, separately, her husband need to become hidden. As we also need to speak to Volin, we will potentially place him into hiding as well.” “If we could talk more privately for a moment, Lady Aspianne,” says Mel, “perhaps we could consider alternatives.” Away from Coralina, Mel seems very serious for a moment but then she shrugs it off in that way of hers. “Until we made the connection with the changeling, I had wondered about Phreet’s look-alike gang and their disappearance, but now I think these murders may be connected. Etona, I think they will try to apply pressure to you using Phreet as ransom, and if you don’t comply you may be at risk of being killed and mimicked next. I don’t know who or why, but that’s my hunch.” Rey looks at me. “You are NOT to be bait. Absolutely not. Maybe you can go away with the girl.” It is outrageous their protecting me like this, but also sweet. I have to stop myself from hugging Rey. She goes on, switching to Mel: “And how are they using Phreet as ransom if they haven't even contacted Etona? Am I missing something?” “I think we all are,” replies Mel. “Your guess is probably as good as mine. No one has tried to leverage anything against her yet, but trust me: if Phreet isn’t already dead, she will be used as a bargaining chip.” She muses, “I wonder . . . If Councilman Chozik is going to be the target, or possibly Elgios? I think we would be no match for either of them: their enemies may simply need someone to weaken them, and I assume you wouldn’t think twice choosing between Thran and Phreet?” she finishes, looking at me. I just look at her. “These plans,” I say instead, “seem to me to be very complex and expensive. We have only been here a few days, and we were not expected more than a few before that. Unless we were lured here by the councilman and all of his overtures about Diamond Lake are a hoax, I don’t understand how anyone could both know I was going to be here and then engineer this chancy series of kidnappings and murder. Furthermore, they are using changelings who must be difficult to locate, knowing as they do that they would be killed upon being caught which is a growing likelihood as these slayings stack up like cords of wood.” “Mm. On the changelings, here is something to think about,” says Mel as she twiddles her small gold lightning bolt amulet of Heironeous, “I possess a blessing that creates a zone of truth around me. I can sense anyone who is lying so we have an indirect means of verifying identity. We only need to ask: are you _______? If the changeling lies or refuses to answer . . . well. However, the magic only lasts an hour or so.” We return to the young elf. “Miss Coralina, if we keep Rocktar busy, would you allow Lady Aspianne to accompany you to Volin’s to make a plan for the two of you?” Mel gives me another deferential nod and hands me a pouch of gold. I am not interested in titles, but this deference is nice, I suppose, particularly when I make the effort to dress the part, though it is clear she is playing her own part now and doing it convincingly, too. The act may have put off Rey. She sidled up to Rishkar and whispered, “Does Mel still smell the same? Did we leave her alone with anyone?” Mel overheard and looks stung. “I have Heironeous’ blessing to prove my worth.” She raises her mace and speaks the holy words of the astral tongue and the mace flares with golden light. “Let’s see a changeling do that.” Rey visibly relaxes and murmurs an apology to Mel. She shrugs and addresses Coralina. “What do you say? How about a visit to Volin?” Coralina nods her head in agreement. *** We convince Rocktar to remain at his home while we escort Coralina away. We tell him she will be gone for some time, but he does not know it may potentially be with Volin, to whose house we travel now. Volin is a thin, slightly oily human who cooperates readily enough. A short talk with him revealed confidence in his own martial skills and an ownership, no, a . . . In my own tongue it is [I]limri[/I]. The Common for it is 'condescing', no, 'condensation'. No. That is rain and snow. An attitude of, of [I]condescension[/I]. Yes, that is what these people show towards her. Two very different men treat Coralina as one would react to a stray animal that had decided to live in their homes. My own conversations with her reveal a lost girl drifting with the waves of events. Some people are like this, but I wonder if she has ever had the opportunity to swim on her own. Perhaps, when this is over, we can travel together for a time and I can teach what it means to have the blood of the Fae in her veins. At any rate, when the attacks are more graphically described, he agreed to leave town immediately with Coralina. With them safely away, we lay a trap for the changeling. Rocktar will be the bait, remaining in his second-floor apartment. I will be in the closet, and Rey and Rishkar will be nearby down below on the street. I have rigged the window to gently alert me if it is opened from the outside but also to shine a half-moon on the wall through using a glass and gently tuning my own light spell. She shall not miss it. We wait as night draws across. [/QUOTE]
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