"I'm interested in your handywork. Who? Where? Any still alive? Do you have the antidote for the poison in that stablehand?" Akos approaches the group lowering his hands from preparation to casting.
"Thank you for the information on others. Do you know if those loyal to the renegade have some sign to use for recognition?"
"Many, many more. A old woman here, a young soldier there. I like to display my art whenever I can, but sometimes I cannot move them for viewing by the public. The guard have found most, yes. But there are others that hang in their homes or are buried in their gardens. Old City has much greenery. I know all their faces, but I don't remember every name. I've been here a long time, and my art used to be just for me. Now, I share it with everyone. Blood and gore smeared on a step or entrails hanging from a tree."
It claps its hands. "Ooh, you saw the boy! What did you think? Did you see the bloody hand prints on the wall in the alley. That is one of my favorite pieces to day. The poison is from my blade. I dropped it. Such a useful brush." Its shoulders sink. "I will not be able to paint with it again." It sighs. "So sad."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Vinccenzo says.
"Hmm, why? Not an art lover are you?" It cackles like a raven. "There is the older woman in the cart. I painted her before the boy. She is quite the work of art even before mu brush cut her deep. She is near the boy but lost her spark for life quickly. Fear helps me paint and she was more sad than afraid." It looks at Akos. "Why would I leave my artwork alive? They would move and ruin the art. No, all are dead. Glassy eyes and hollowed out guts."
It sees the faces glaring back at it and rolls its eyes. "Everyone's a critic." It sighs again. "The others don't have a signal to each other. We are telepathic beings. We know each other without making hand gestures. They may have a signal to your kind working for Phelix, but I do not know it. I am not his servant and don't care to be his thrall."
Neurotic said:
"We should check that young guard. Maybe he was replaced. And we brought it back to his influential father."
"The one you were chasing? Nathaniel Aceron. He is not one of us. I do not know if they have taken the forms of any of the guards. If they have, I've never noticed them in such forms. But, they rarely venture beyond the wards closest to the Gardens and I do not go into the Gardens. Risky. The renegade does have human followers among the guards. While Young Aceron is not one of them, he likes bribes. Give him coin, and he looks the other way."
Vinccenzo shakes his head in frustration.
"Corruption amongst the Regulars is not new."
"Yes, but it is who he takes bribes from is the key. I have seen him an another guard." it pauses to think. "I don't recall his name. He is a scruffy fellow who drinks a lot. Young Aceron gets his bribes from the scruffy one, and from Sabela Abreu. She is in league with the renegade and the leader of the Brelish Thieves Guild here in Bluffside. She and Phelix are old friends, yes." It pauses again to let that sink in. "I know this because I have been there after painting one of her thieves that discovered my identity. I killed him and buried him under the old windmill outside the district. His name was Rees, Rees the Rat. I took his form and went there to make sure no one else had discovered me. I left quickly once I realized a whole guild uses it a front. Yes, too risky."
"I've never heard of her."
"You are Sectarian not Regular. Your kind rarely leaves the Wizard District, yes?"
"Yes, but times are changing."
"Phelix makes all in Bluffside nervous, afraid. Good for my art."
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OOC:
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I think you mean Kaleb Raupach, right?
Sabela Abreu is the owner of the Delicate Delight Eatery, which sits near the walls dividing the Gardens from Old City.
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Neurotic said:
Akos kneels next to the creature and binds the worst of its wounds.
"You'll live. I hope your phisiology isn't too different from humans internally. I would really like to disect you to see the connection of your joints and bone structure. But I guess it will have to wait."
"I thank you. But, if I still die, you have my permission to paint me, yes. Just make sure you display my body with flare. All of Bluffside must see me as artwork after death, yes."
Tuck turns his little reptilian head this way and that, studying the doppelganger with both eyes in turn.
Holding his sword ready in case it makes a run for it, Tuck says softly, ”You’re a danger to innocent people. And for what? Your own amusement?”
The kobold, whose goal in life revolves largely around helping people in the city he fondly calls home, hates the doppelganger intensely.
It sighs. "Another art critic. I am surprised, Your people are good painters. Bloodied many gnomes and humans... I have seen. Do you not paint your foes with your brushes of steel. Your wolf has sharp teeth and its bites must be beautiful to behold."
It looks at the bandages on its legs and torso. "Yes, I do love my art. Blood is so pretty. Why would I not be amused by by own work. I do what I love. And, the innocent are more afraid than the guilty. The fear makes the art all the sweeter." It looks longingly at Mutt before glancing back at Tuck. "I see you do not agree."
"I can't," Vinccenzo says.
"No more."
He walks off into the fog more than dozen feet and paces back and forth, obviously troubled.
