Paridon: The Dark Metropolis (Ravenloft)

[Rhun]

Torhan steps back and lets the others take a lead role in the questioning, not wanting to overwhelm the young woman. Instead he leans back against the wall to casually observe the questioning...

[sblock=IVV]
Torhan will use his Detect Evil ability while the others are questioning the young woman.
[/sblock]

 

[jkason]

Ru Brike, barbaric human monk

"It" lay on the table while Hieran took notes. Although he had never seen the diagrams traced out on skin like this before, the patterns were familiar to him. He even recognized some of the tracings from his own spellbook. Along his left arm, the formula for resonances in negative energy in animated corpses. Across his chest, the sigil for imbuing the skin with protective hardness. Pity it did him little good. The patterns were not recent, though, but tattooed over a long period of time--years, Fr. Breman confirms. And still, there is the question of the surgical precision of the heart's removal and the crude brutality resulting in the head's removal. Neither of the two investigators know of any ritual or religion that would ask for or require two extremely different steps.

Ru takes note that the markings seemed less than recent. Were they tied in with this death at all, then? he wonders. Trying to be patient and observe, he lets those better able to handle people continue the questioning.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

The gnome continues to sob for a while, grasping tightly to her glass. The emotion breaks, finally, and she heaves long breaths as she calms down. Hieran and Fr. Breman held back and moved the corpse away into a cabinet for safe keeping.

"Sorry... I... My name... is Adalavas ko Pigglemorth." She looks up for a moment and takes a quick sip of water before her eyes drop again. "My human name is Ada," she sighs.

"We all were gathering in the clock tower square, waiting for midnight. We all got our new faces ready, and when the clock struck, everyone started celebrating. The dancing and singing started, and someone was having too much fun with some firecrackers. We--I went into the tower to get away from everyone else, it was all so loud, and I like the gears. I climbed all the way up, and in the tower clock, dangling from a chain... there it was. It was slowly riding up to the hammer tensors..."

[sblock=Torhan]Torhan has never liked focusing on the evil around him. Evil hangs in the air in Paridon, slowly writhing and twisting as tendrils of mist everywhere. Detecting evil means inviting the mist into consciousness. The room almost seems to fade from view when the power is used, as the dread malaise grows everywhere. His companions even take on pieces of this evil as it twists around them. Usually, the best that Torhan can look for in such a fell environment is for disdain of society. Antisocial impulses show clearly under this backdrop. True evil, though, looks like anyone.

Except for Ada. The evil in the air usually sticks to everything like a mold, residing in their souls where one's sins of the past lie. But the evil has not touched her. She sits like a fresh blossom, too young and new to know its lasting taint. She has not yet invited evil into her heart.

Yet the evil curls around her, waiting. It knows its time will come very soon. Tendrils are reaching out to her lips...[/sblock]

 

[industrygothica]

"I see, Miss Ada," Darian continues, chosing not to acknowledge her slip of the word "we". "And your new face, as you call it--this is the butterfly, I presume? Tell me, what does it mean?"

Darian continues to engage her in easy conversation, figuring that he'll get more of the story if he is comfortable with him, even though it may take a bit longer than his usual methods. He pays careful attention to her responses, however, knowing that there is something that she is not telling him.

[sblock=ooc]Sense Motive +7[/sblock]

 

[Rhun]

Torhan grimaces and shakes his head to clear the mist from his thoughts. He was sure, on some level, that this foul city would be the death of him. Bringing his attention back to the conversation at hand, Tohan considers the gnome female carefully.

"Did you perhaps see anyone else in the clock tower? Perhaps leaving as you were entering?"

 

[Boddynock]

Abass was onto the discrepancy of the "we" immediately. He opened his mouth to challenge the young witness, then closed it again, somewhat reluctantly. This mollycoddling of witnesses who withheld vital information was not something he approved of - yet he acknowledged that Darian seemed to have more patience in dealing with hysterical plebs than he did, and that his methods brought results. Well, he would allow the others to question the girl.

In the meanwhile his mind revolved the various data - time, place, the nature of the markings, the wounds on the body. A question which must be answered, of course, was of the primacy of the wounds. Was the head ripped off so that the heart could be harvested, or was the heart removed so that the body could be animated? Then why and how did the massive trauma to the neck occur? And where was the head? Where, for that matter, was the heart?

 

[jkason]

Ru Brike, barbaric human monk

Ru sidles up to the wizard as the people folk among them work the girl.

"I don't suppose you have a spell that tracks down missing body parts, do you?" he whispers with half a smile.

 

[Boddynock]

Ru sidles up to the wizard as the people folk among them work the girl.

"I don't suppose you have a spell that tracks down missing body parts, do you?" he whispers with half a smile.

Abass jumps as his companion addresses him, so deep was he in thought, then frowns as he considers Ru's words.

"An interesting question. When does a body part cease to be a part of a person and become, instead, an object in its own right?"

"I do, indeed, have a spell which might serve - but there are restrictions on its power."

"Magic is infinitely flexible, and yet simultaneously rigid in its parameters. There is a self-limiting process which determines that the magic practitioner is bound within a web of harmonies which cannot - must not - be violated. If it were, then the fabric of our reality would warp around us in a cascade of dissolution quite unlike the magical effects we normally call spells. It would be utter destruction."

"But enough of this - it does not serve. There is a spell - but for it to be effective, I would need some idea of where to look, since its range is not unlimited. I would also need to be familiar with what I am looking for. So we have the conundrum that I must already have seen what I would see."

[sblock=OOC]Thinking of Locate Object, which he has prepared. Still, not helpful without more information.[/sblock]

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Ada swallows as she continues, but the question on the celebration seems to relax her somewhat. "It's all part of the celebrations. New faces for the new year. We wear new faces to remind us that all the past is no more, and that the future is what we see. Daddy narrates that spirits of the past will pass into those who wear the old faces during the party. We reject the old, and turn to something new."

She turns to Torhan, getting nervous. "Uh... No, I saw no one leaving as I went in. Not many people go into the tower. It's too dangerous. You could trip or get hit by a weight..."

Ada looks around tensely, and adds, "Um, can I go home now, please? Daddy must be worried sick..."

 

[industrygothica]

"I see," says Darian. "Ada, do you think that I could see your mask for just a moment. I happen to be fond of butterflies."

Darian is really trying to get a look at her full, un-masked face. If she takes it off, he will ponder over the craftsmanship (which he really couldn't care less about; he has no use for butterflies) before he questions her previous slip of the tongue.