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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rolzup" data-source="post: 3050773" data-attributes="member: 10105">The Glorious Return of BurneSome men are born to greatness.  Others have it thrust upon them.  And some? Some stride forth boldly, seize greatness by its collar, shove it up against a wall, pull down its trousers, and show it who is in charge around here.It should surprise no-one that Burne is just such a man.ACTUALLY, MOST PEOPLE WOULD BE SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT BURNE IS A MAN AT ALL, ANY LONGER.  GIVEN THE WAY HE EXPERIMENTS WITH PHLOGISTONIC INCINDIARIES WEARING NOTHING BUT A SHORT RED ROBE.My special training went surpassingly well, as I had anticipated, and while I am unable to divulge the details of what this training entailed...well, suffice to say that, once again, I proved my mettle beyond all shadow of a doubt, and earned a long-overdue commission as an detached agent for the Naval Office of Special Intelligence and Applied Conflagrational Activities."DETACHED" MEANING THAT THE NAVY CAN AND WILL DISAVOW ANY RESPONSIBILITY IF HE BLOWS UP SOMETHING IMPORTANT.  OR SOMEONE.And so, with head held high, I returned to civilian life, determined to discover how many of my followers had managed to get themselves killed in my absence.  Both of the foreigners, much to my despair, were still breathing. Far worse, they'd collected another of their ilk, a self-styled mystic named Meiji.Barbarous name, that.  And an only slightly less barbarous individual.  Oh, he carried himself well enough, I suppose...if your tastes run to men in dresses, which mine most assuredly do not.  Far too arrogant for my tastes, however, and he consistently fails to show his superior, which is to say myself, the proper deference.  And his magic?  Mere frippery and pictograms, unworthy of serious consideration.Be that as it may, their adoption of yet another stray was only the first of their crimes.  More importantly, they managed to lose the Madman.How they managed this, I cannot even begin to imagine.  He's a large fellow, and emits enough sound and odor that even a blind man could easily track him.  Nevertheless, he was gone...vanished, apparently, into thick air.And the hours I had spent practicing dissection techniques? Wasted.And the final insult?  They committed arson.Without Burne.Oh, they attempted to deny it.  But to no avail...the signs and scents of a burning building were all too clear to me, and the very idea that they would indulge is such an activity without a connoisseur such as myself? Unthinkable.  Insulting, even.I should mention they also rescued a child prostitute from the Maison before igniting it, though "rescued" might be too generous a word. What they did falls somewhere between a "random act of kindness", "involuntary adoption", and "kidnapping with the option to buy". I shudder to think what kind of parenting skills the Ajakhani posses, though Lord Kenji knows a great deal about dresses and Rackhir could teach her all he's learned of the fine art of listening to what men tell him to do.It may fall to me to raise her properly. Equip her for the rigors of CITY life. Perhaps by adding an exoskeleton...IF HE SO MUCH AS LAYS A CALIPER ON HER I WILL SPRAY HIS COFFEE WITH MERCURY.Where were we? Ah yes, over the course of the next few days I became reacquainted with the situation. Delphine's father was keeping her locked in the family estate, safe from her rightful husband, not to mention the gentleman alchemist responsible for reuniting them and thus so richly deserving of reward.BY ALL MEANS DON"T MENTION THAT.What communications we did manage with the Lady Delphine via her maidservants were obviously  --to a man such as myself-intercepted and no doubt censored.A MAN SHARP ENOUGH TO NOTICE SHE DIDN'T ACTUALLY MEET US WHEN SHE SAID SHE WOULD.Fearing what a controlling father might do to a spirited daughter who married below her station, on my suggestion...ACTUALLY IT WAS RACKHIR'S...we once again employed the services of the wastrel Lovesworn, Mallus, as a means of tracking Delphine's whereabouts, using her husbands love for her as a lodestone.So it was on the 4th day since my glorious, much deserved, nay, inevitable induction into the MCSDF Detached Officers Corps, we found ourselves all at the farmers market that King Daikon Had set up on the sadly storied grounds of Han Oi Xian's dye dye works, which was formerly the site of a Temple of Kruetzel where atrocities where witnessed on children, and before that a temple of The Most Violent Women of the Sea, the dreaded Stormdaughters of Pentamoor. Quite frankly. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if an inverted pyramid of Night Basalt once stood on the spot.HE BURNED PATHWAYS INSIDE MY SKULL CASE, USING MOLTEN IRON, THAT PREVENT ME FROM EDITING HIS WORDS.When Lord Kenji spotted the invisible bird circling above, using his macabre, ocular dagger. Thus began our first proper encounter with the Adversary.</blockquote>

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