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BSI: Bosum Strand Irregulars
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<blockquote data-quote="skotothalamos" data-source="post: 6249566" data-attributes="member: 83398"><p><strong>Going Back through Agate and Then Home</strong></p><p></p><p>Still reeling from their recent near-death experiences (and actual-death experiences), the constables took a moment to rest atop the ziggurat before climbing down. James was the first to discover that the Voice of Rot had given them a gift: the ability to detect the planar energies of Apet. By performing a simple arcane ritual, any of the constables could now see where visitors to the ziggurat had gone. James quickly tried it out and noticed one strong and five faint trails leading away from the ziggurat. The strongest of the trails was over a month old, syncing up with Xambria’s timeline for when the disaster struck the ziggurat teams.</p><p> </p><p>The constables loaded back up into their pole-boats and made the long trek out of the High Bayou. What had been a 16-hour journey on the way in was only ten on the way out, almost as though the bayou itself were helping them along. They overnighted at the inn in Agate and followed the trail back through Bole and onto the train headed back towards Flint.</p><p> </p><p>With several days for traveling, Summer took advantage of the opportunity to watch the sky for portents about who their target was and what its goals were. During the travel, she dreamt of the planet of thought-beasts, which she now could identify as Gidim. She saw the armies of thought-beasts gathered for an invasion, but she then saw that they were on the surface of Apet instead of their homeworld. Her dream focused on one of their leaders, a more-or-less bipedal creature with facial tentacles. The dream then shifted to show the creature lurking over Xambria’s shoulder as she went about her daily routine in her apartment. Lastly, she saw the creature standing before the golden seal. The creature then pulled the seal open like a door, revealing a portal to Gidim behind it.</p><p> </p><p>She told the others of her dreams, and they took them to mean that a Gidim general had been trapped behind the golden seal, but had been released and was possessing Xambria. He seemed to want to use the golden artifacts and seal to open a portal to Gidim. The constables were sure that the trail they were following would lead to Xambria, so they sent a telegram ahead to Assistant Chief Inspector Delft, telling him to put covert surveillance on Xambria’s apartment until they could arrive.</p><p> </p><p>On the 10[SUP]th[/SUP] of Autimn, the constables arrivied at King’s Station in Flint. The first thing the constables noticed was a stand of newspapers with a huge headline: ROCK RACKUS JAILED. They bought a copy and read about Rock Rackus shooting the son of Flint’s Attorney General, Mara Starke. The son, Tyler Starke, was in serious condition at a hospital, and Rock was in jail. Malkie immediately jumped ship and went to see her client while the rest of the constables focused on their RHC work.</p><p> </p><p>Most of the group went to Headquarters to check in, but Mort didn’t want to lose a moment, so he went directly to Xambria’s apartment, in the Pardwight University graduate housing. When he got there, he found two uniformed officers watching the place. They told him that they’d been watching the apartment but no one had come or gone. Mort went to the desk and got access to the apartment. The door and windows were locked, but there were signs of a struggle in the apartment, together with signs that someone had packed a large rectangular object on her bed. He surmised that it was a steamer trunk, as her closet seemed to be missing some clothes. Mort tried his hand at the tracking ritual and found so many trails of Apet energy in the apartment that he could not separate them from each other. The subject had been in Xambria’s Flint apartment for over a month, the same amount of time Xambria had been there.</p><p> </p><p>Meanwhile, the other constables (Cazara, Summer, Ironpeak, and James) were meeting with Delft, giving him a report on their adventure to the ziggurat. He was following along happily until they started talking about a Fey Titan rising and commissioning their service in the name of King Kelland, who founded the nation seventeen centuries ago. He advised that they give their incident reports directly to him, and that it would be perfectly okay if they filled them out in pencil.</p><p> </p><p>The constables went to their desks. James had a message on his desk detailing the progress that had been made with the destroyed bronze golem found at a murder scene before the constables left town. He temporarily excused himself from the Xambria investigation and headed down to the evidence lockup to work on the golem. Ironpeak had two objects of note in her inbox: a thesis entitled <em>Methods of Extricating Warriors from a Variety of Tentacled and Tendriled Monsters, </em>based on the Battalion’s research into the thought-beast bodies that Ironpeak had sent over for study. Ironpeak set to reading the paper in an effort to increase her options when they next faced the beasts. Secondly, she had a letter from Lord Viscount Nigel Price-Hill asking her to come to his office as soon as she could.</p><p> </p><p>Ironpeak reluctantly went to the Lord Viscount’s office, expecting a reprimand for something that had been uncovered in the audit. Instead, she was greeted warmly; Price-Hill told her she was an exemplary constable and, as a veteran of the Yerasol wars, her upward mobility in the constabulary was something he would like to help to facilitate. Toward that end, he invited her and a guest to a formal ball that he was throwing the following night at his guest house on the Governor’s estate. She left, thanking the Lord Viscount for the invitation.</p><p> </p><p>Cazara had been listening at the door and immediately asked who Ironpeak would be taking as her date to the party. They grabbed Summer and headed for Xambria’s apartment, the whole time discussing the various merits of taking different guests to the party. Ironpeak was amused that she, a Beran-born Goliath, was being put forth as an exemplary constable who was being potentially groomed for leadership. Upon arriving at Xambria’s apartment, they told Mort what was going on and he began petitioning to be Ironpeak’s guest at the party, citing his long experience maneuvering in high society.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually, the constables got back to work. A second, third, and fourth set of eyes just confirmed what Mort had already discovered at the scene: there had been a struggle, and then Xambria had packed and left. Cazara and Ironpeak wondered if the struggle had been between Xambria and another party or just Xambria stumbling around struggling with herself.</p><p> </p><p>They decided to check out the Museum of Natural History while they were on campus. Interviewing Professor Hans Weber did not bring up any new information, but they cast their tracking ritual again and found a path to follow that led across the Central District to Lady Saxby’s house. The trail went over the back wall of the manor and then came back out again and headed north.</p><p> </p><p>A few more casts of the ritual led them to the docks, where the trail led off the end of a pier and across the water. Mort asked around and, after a few hours, was able to discover that a woman matching Xambria’s description had boarded a ship called <em>Dagger</em> on the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] of Autumn. He also found out that the ship’s captain had been bragging at a docker bar about getting a tourist fare to just take a passenger off the coast of Ber and loiter in the ocean for a while.</p><p> </p><p>With Xambria having two days’ head start, and no clue as to her destination, the constables were unable to further pursue the trail. They discussed the possibility of running into Captain Rutger Smith at the party Ironpeak was heading to he following night. Captain Smith commanded the fastest ship available to the RHC, but would they be able to secure its use?</p><p> </p><p>Mort headed back to the Danoran Consulate to see if they had any invitations to the Lord Viscount’s party that he could use. He was met at the door by security guards who told him that Security Chief Julian LeBrix was looking for him. LeBrix told Mort that there had been a clumsy attempt to frame him for the murder of a teamster named Marcus Moretti (who had provided Mort with a lead to help track down weapons dealer Kaja Stewart). Someone had left a note in Mort’s room thanking Mort for taking over Stewart’s smuggling operation. Two hundred gold pieces were included with the note, along with instructions to “take care of” Moretti for being troublesome.</p><p> </p><p>Of course, none of this fooled LeBrix, but he did advise Mort to be more careful in his dealings with Risuri organized crime. Mort then asked about the party the following night. LeBrix said he had an invite and asked if Mort wanted to be his date.</p><p> </p><p>Ironpeak, Summer, and Cazara went to the Goodson Estuarial Reformatory to see the people who had been incarcerated for contracting Distant Madness and not being able to afford private care. The Estuarial Reformatory was a series of thirteen ship hulls that had been tethered together in Flint Bay to deal with the overflow of prisoners in Flint. One of the ships had burned down over the summer, leaving only twelve, which meant the overcrowded ships were even worse than usual. The ship with the Distant Madness prisoners had reinforced guard rails to keep them from accidentally walking off the ship.</p><p> </p><p>After looking over paperwork and managing to interview a few sufferers, the constables were able to identify a pattern. Most of the sufferers either lived or worked along a certain section of the Stanfield Canal. The constables made a note to investigate that the following day, as it was now growing late.</p><p> </p><p>Summer had a few more dreams that night, revealing that the Gidim general had searched Saxby’s house for something, but had come up empty and was now heading for another golden seal under the ocean. She also learned that the golden seal from the ziggurat was being hidden in a section of subrail, probably somewhere under Flint.</p><p> </p><p>Their quarry was getting farther away every minute, but the constables hoped a good performance at the Lord Viscount’s party would grant them access to a fast ship…</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="skotothalamos, post: 6249566, member: 83398"] [b]Going Back through Agate and Then Home[/b] Still reeling from their recent near-death experiences (and actual-death experiences), the constables took a moment to rest atop the ziggurat before climbing down. James was the first to discover that the Voice of Rot had given them a gift: the ability to detect the planar energies of Apet. By performing a simple arcane ritual, any of the constables could now see where visitors to the ziggurat had gone. James quickly tried it out and noticed one strong and five faint trails leading away from the ziggurat. The strongest of the trails was over a month old, syncing up with Xambria’s timeline for when the disaster struck the ziggurat teams. The constables loaded back up into their pole-boats and made the long trek out of the High Bayou. What had been a 16-hour journey on the way in was only ten on the way out, almost as though the bayou itself were helping them along. They overnighted at the inn in Agate and followed the trail back through Bole and onto the train headed back towards Flint. With several days for traveling, Summer took advantage of the opportunity to watch the sky for portents about who their target was and what its goals were. During the travel, she dreamt of the planet of thought-beasts, which she now could identify as Gidim. She saw the armies of thought-beasts gathered for an invasion, but she then saw that they were on the surface of Apet instead of their homeworld. Her dream focused on one of their leaders, a more-or-less bipedal creature with facial tentacles. The dream then shifted to show the creature lurking over Xambria’s shoulder as she went about her daily routine in her apartment. Lastly, she saw the creature standing before the golden seal. The creature then pulled the seal open like a door, revealing a portal to Gidim behind it. She told the others of her dreams, and they took them to mean that a Gidim general had been trapped behind the golden seal, but had been released and was possessing Xambria. He seemed to want to use the golden artifacts and seal to open a portal to Gidim. The constables were sure that the trail they were following would lead to Xambria, so they sent a telegram ahead to Assistant Chief Inspector Delft, telling him to put covert surveillance on Xambria’s apartment until they could arrive. On the 10[SUP]th[/SUP] of Autimn, the constables arrivied at King’s Station in Flint. The first thing the constables noticed was a stand of newspapers with a huge headline: ROCK RACKUS JAILED. They bought a copy and read about Rock Rackus shooting the son of Flint’s Attorney General, Mara Starke. The son, Tyler Starke, was in serious condition at a hospital, and Rock was in jail. Malkie immediately jumped ship and went to see her client while the rest of the constables focused on their RHC work. Most of the group went to Headquarters to check in, but Mort didn’t want to lose a moment, so he went directly to Xambria’s apartment, in the Pardwight University graduate housing. When he got there, he found two uniformed officers watching the place. They told him that they’d been watching the apartment but no one had come or gone. Mort went to the desk and got access to the apartment. The door and windows were locked, but there were signs of a struggle in the apartment, together with signs that someone had packed a large rectangular object on her bed. He surmised that it was a steamer trunk, as her closet seemed to be missing some clothes. Mort tried his hand at the tracking ritual and found so many trails of Apet energy in the apartment that he could not separate them from each other. The subject had been in Xambria’s Flint apartment for over a month, the same amount of time Xambria had been there. Meanwhile, the other constables (Cazara, Summer, Ironpeak, and James) were meeting with Delft, giving him a report on their adventure to the ziggurat. He was following along happily until they started talking about a Fey Titan rising and commissioning their service in the name of King Kelland, who founded the nation seventeen centuries ago. He advised that they give their incident reports directly to him, and that it would be perfectly okay if they filled them out in pencil. The constables went to their desks. James had a message on his desk detailing the progress that had been made with the destroyed bronze golem found at a murder scene before the constables left town. He temporarily excused himself from the Xambria investigation and headed down to the evidence lockup to work on the golem. Ironpeak had two objects of note in her inbox: a thesis entitled [I]Methods of Extricating Warriors from a Variety of Tentacled and Tendriled Monsters, [/I]based on the Battalion’s research into the thought-beast bodies that Ironpeak had sent over for study. Ironpeak set to reading the paper in an effort to increase her options when they next faced the beasts. Secondly, she had a letter from Lord Viscount Nigel Price-Hill asking her to come to his office as soon as she could. Ironpeak reluctantly went to the Lord Viscount’s office, expecting a reprimand for something that had been uncovered in the audit. Instead, she was greeted warmly; Price-Hill told her she was an exemplary constable and, as a veteran of the Yerasol wars, her upward mobility in the constabulary was something he would like to help to facilitate. Toward that end, he invited her and a guest to a formal ball that he was throwing the following night at his guest house on the Governor’s estate. She left, thanking the Lord Viscount for the invitation. Cazara had been listening at the door and immediately asked who Ironpeak would be taking as her date to the party. They grabbed Summer and headed for Xambria’s apartment, the whole time discussing the various merits of taking different guests to the party. Ironpeak was amused that she, a Beran-born Goliath, was being put forth as an exemplary constable who was being potentially groomed for leadership. Upon arriving at Xambria’s apartment, they told Mort what was going on and he began petitioning to be Ironpeak’s guest at the party, citing his long experience maneuvering in high society. Eventually, the constables got back to work. A second, third, and fourth set of eyes just confirmed what Mort had already discovered at the scene: there had been a struggle, and then Xambria had packed and left. Cazara and Ironpeak wondered if the struggle had been between Xambria and another party or just Xambria stumbling around struggling with herself. They decided to check out the Museum of Natural History while they were on campus. Interviewing Professor Hans Weber did not bring up any new information, but they cast their tracking ritual again and found a path to follow that led across the Central District to Lady Saxby’s house. The trail went over the back wall of the manor and then came back out again and headed north. A few more casts of the ritual led them to the docks, where the trail led off the end of a pier and across the water. Mort asked around and, after a few hours, was able to discover that a woman matching Xambria’s description had boarded a ship called [I]Dagger[/I] on the 8[SUP]th[/SUP] of Autumn. He also found out that the ship’s captain had been bragging at a docker bar about getting a tourist fare to just take a passenger off the coast of Ber and loiter in the ocean for a while. With Xambria having two days’ head start, and no clue as to her destination, the constables were unable to further pursue the trail. They discussed the possibility of running into Captain Rutger Smith at the party Ironpeak was heading to he following night. Captain Smith commanded the fastest ship available to the RHC, but would they be able to secure its use? Mort headed back to the Danoran Consulate to see if they had any invitations to the Lord Viscount’s party that he could use. He was met at the door by security guards who told him that Security Chief Julian LeBrix was looking for him. LeBrix told Mort that there had been a clumsy attempt to frame him for the murder of a teamster named Marcus Moretti (who had provided Mort with a lead to help track down weapons dealer Kaja Stewart). Someone had left a note in Mort’s room thanking Mort for taking over Stewart’s smuggling operation. Two hundred gold pieces were included with the note, along with instructions to “take care of” Moretti for being troublesome. Of course, none of this fooled LeBrix, but he did advise Mort to be more careful in his dealings with Risuri organized crime. Mort then asked about the party the following night. LeBrix said he had an invite and asked if Mort wanted to be his date. Ironpeak, Summer, and Cazara went to the Goodson Estuarial Reformatory to see the people who had been incarcerated for contracting Distant Madness and not being able to afford private care. The Estuarial Reformatory was a series of thirteen ship hulls that had been tethered together in Flint Bay to deal with the overflow of prisoners in Flint. One of the ships had burned down over the summer, leaving only twelve, which meant the overcrowded ships were even worse than usual. The ship with the Distant Madness prisoners had reinforced guard rails to keep them from accidentally walking off the ship. After looking over paperwork and managing to interview a few sufferers, the constables were able to identify a pattern. Most of the sufferers either lived or worked along a certain section of the Stanfield Canal. The constables made a note to investigate that the following day, as it was now growing late. Summer had a few more dreams that night, revealing that the Gidim general had searched Saxby’s house for something, but had come up empty and was now heading for another golden seal under the ocean. She also learned that the golden seal from the ziggurat was being hidden in a section of subrail, probably somewhere under Flint. Their quarry was getting farther away every minute, but the constables hoped a good performance at the Lord Viscount’s party would grant them access to a fast ship… [/QUOTE]
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