Nautkia, and the South

[Drannin]

Argus drank some wine, slowly. He was trying to cut back; it was a particularly bad time to get plastered, after all.

So the bodies have started to fall here; dear Weave, are we cursed or something?!

Oh, right. Harker was his familiar. Never mind.

[Graybeard]

Sister Rose nodded silently at Lillith's question, whispered "Later," pressed a finger to her lips. The dinner seemed to be coming to a premature end; even the servants standing at the side of the room with an impossibly elaborate dessert (it looked like ice cream carved into the form of a giant snail, festooned with flowers and spices, none of them local of course) didn't seem all that enthusiastic about serving it, or miffed that they wouldn't get the chance. Well, I certainly can't blame them, she thought. In truth, the travelers had had more food than they really wanted to eat anyway, except of course for Lillith.

It was a solemn and subdued group that made their way back to their lodging. "I guess I won't be talking to Brother Kelso tomorrow after all," Brother Miguel said softly, and unnecessarily, to Rose as they walked. He was feeling particularly depressed about the death; had it had anything to do with the information that Kelso had had about Father Egbert? He was almost certain that it did. Rose, for her part, was pretty sure now who the informant in Bernie's message was -- or more accurately, had been. He wasn't going to be doing any more fact finding, that was for sure...

She motioned Argus closer to Miguel and herself. "We're not going to be here for his funeral ceremony," she said, stating it as a fact, not a prediction. "Miguel, let's you and me say a quick Rite of Repose in our chambers instead. It would be nice to be able to do that without being disturbed; it's a rather ... private ... ceremony, best performed away from the eyes and ears of the outside world." She looked at Argus, hoping that he'd get the idea and not misinterpret the suggestion. (She also gave thanks that Harker wasn't there to hear it, as it certainly would have been misinterpreted; how could a talking forest animal have such a dirty mind?)

The Rite of Repose, as conducted by the Reformed church, was a very brief, simple liturgy that only took about ten minutes; the goal, after all, was to provide comfort for the relatives of the deceased as well as to help settle the restless soul, and lacking those relatives, all of the pauses for comforting them could be dispensed with. Even so, Rose and Miguel hadn't finished their recitations to each other when there was a knock on the door of the room. Rose answered (with Miguel on his guard) to find a surprisingly young, fit-looking woman in the same kind of jump suit that the field workers had been wearing earlier in the day. She was carrying a cloth that Rose didn't recognize at first.

"Excuse me, ma'am," the girl said. "You seem to have left your shawl in the dining hall." She held it out, and now Rose recognized it as part of a nun's vestments -- but she was wearing her own, which she'd put on for the Rite.

"I think there must be a mistake," Rose replied. "That isn't my -- oh." A piece of paper was protruding from under the shawl. Rose took paper and cloth, the girl bowed her head, and the door closed as Rose heard footsteps receding in the hallway, not another word exchanged.

The Rite could wait. "Let's see what's going on here," Rose said as Miguel peered over her shoulder at the message.
Major N-L:

Come to the servants' quarters after Last Prayers tonight. Ask for Lisebeth.

Eat this when you are done reading it.

"Semper Fi", ma'am.

Rose popped the rice paper in her mouth, impressed. Apparently Bernie had achieved cooperation with the national police ... and maybe Kelso hadn't been the informant in Nautkia after all.

[Viking-Sensei]

The party breaking up, Sasha carefully slipped out the side door, through the servant corridors, and towards a door that led out into the crisp evening air. Even this door was wired, she noticed... a delicate network of sensor crystals designed to record the metrics of whoever walked through it, carefully worked into the intricate woodworking. "This is getting problematic." Sasha said quietly to herself. "Too many eyes on me."

There was a quiet shuffling behind her, soft shoes scuffing quietly on wooden floors, the sound of someone sneaking up inelegantly on her location. Sasha gripped her very sharp knife's handle, then braced herself to spin and slash in one precise move - one of the anti-half-elf manuvers that she'd been taught by her mentor, obviously. Oh, well, better this than nothing.

Using the silvery reflection off the knife, she tried to position the person behind her... but there was no one there... until she aimed the reflection down. A small boy, in fluffy bunny houseshoes and holding a ragged-with-love teddy, was standing behind her and looking weepy. " 'scuse me, lady, have you seen my mommy?"

[Graybeard]

It was still a couple of hours from Last Prayers, so Sister Rose and Brother Miguel decided to use the light of sunset for some orientation, and some fact finding. "Come on, there's safety in numbers," Rose said as Lillith answered the knock on her door. A similar scene played out at Argus' door, although Argus was swearing under his breath; what had Harker done now? Sasha wasn't in her room. Miguel thought he'd seen her heading out a side door from the imploded dinner; that might require some attention. And Cit still hadn't appeared; that might require even more attention.

They set off for the servants' quarters (best to at least see where they were while there was still light, to make the later return trip easier), Miguel noting with some relief that Sasha was outside the dining hall, talking to a small child. He couldn't attract her notice, but at least she seemed to be okay. There was still no sign of Cit, though. Well, he'd been something of an outlier to the mission, but still, there'd been too much death in the area; Miguel hoped Cit hadn't been part of it. Not much they could do about it if he had, though...

From the way the dinner had gone, Rose and Miguel were expecting the servants' quarters to be a disgusting hovel in comparison to the opulence of the temple, their lodging, the dining hall, and so on; the idle rich seldom looked after their hired help's well being. They were surprised when they got there, however, to see another well maintained, comfortable-looking building with good light shining through the windows. "A rising tide floats all boats," Rose murmured, aware of the irony of invoking a naval image for a place that seemed to derive its income from water-borne smuggling. Piling on a little, she continued, "Everything looks ship-shape here, and it won't be hard to find after dark. Let's check out the formal garden again. I'm curious about something."

The garden wasn't as peaceful as it had been earlier. A large mob had congregated at the point where garden, vineyards and hedge met, exactly where Rose had slipped through to see what lay beyond the hedge. Officious-looking people were coming and going, bustling about self-importantly, and (so Miguel, the party's divination expert, noticed) destroying any possible evidence in the grass as they did. Was that just incompetence, or possibly intentional? One thing he had to say for this outfit, they were competent. Everything they'd seen done here had been done professionally and well. He didn't like the conclusion about the investigation that followed from that observation.

"Uh, oh," Rose muttered, nodding toward the edge of the "investigating" group. The little man with the pince-nez was there, talking to some large, rough-looking fellows. "I don't think we want to run into them right now. Let's take evasive action," she continued. However, the strange man didn't seem to pay much attention to the group ... but rather started walking casually toward where Miguel had last seen Sasha and the child.

That was probably worse.

[Drannin]

Argus shook his head. "I like this place less and less with each passing moment..." he muttered darkly. "I just wish I knew what was going on around here." From the looks Miguel and Rose gave him, he wasn't the only one.

Argus suddenly missed Cirella sharply. She had always been a real detective, or at least had been good at puzzling things out. Amazing, the times at which I'll miss her... He REALLY wished she was around right now... for many reasons.

[Graybeard]

"Do you think any of this is worth risking an overnight parrot on?" Brother Miguel asked, as the group walked back toward their quarters, avoiding contact with the men who were still rushing between temple and garden.

Sister Rose thought for a minute. "I don't think so. We're still short on facts here, for one thing, and for another, that little -- encounter -- that I had suggests that there are other ways of getting information to where it needs to go." She didn't think their words were being overheard, but this still seemed like a time for circumlocutions.

Miguel nodded. "Fair enough. I think that you and I should attend Last Prayers in the temple, though. Several reasons for that. That won't be for an hour or so, so let's help Argus and Lillith get settled for the night." They walked on in silence through the gathering darkness, wondering whether either of their colleagues would have any observances of their own for the dead man. It certainly didn't seem like Argus' style, but Lillith -- well, she could be surprising. As they approached the guest house, they noticed that a light was on in the window of Argus' chambers.

[Sareth]

Lillith was quietly thinking over the proper things to do to send the newly departed on his journey when she noticed the light. She glanced up, then over to Argus. "You don't suppose that thing of yours needs the light for his latest 'artwork' do you?" she asked, the disgust in her voice insufficiently hidden. But then something occurred to her. "Wait, how would he get the light on? he doesn't have thumbs."

[Graybeard]

"Uh, oh," Brother Miguel said. "Looks like Harker might have company. Let's approach this cautiously." Indeed, Harker's distinctive voice could be heard from inside the room ... and so could another, female voice that definitely wasn't Harker's.

---------

[OOC: Once again, apologies, Temp; just two lines for Cit this time ...]

"And that price?" Cit asked.

"Well, there are two payment options," the older man said. "Booking, shall I say, regular accommodations on our get-out-of-sight service is rather ... expensive. I noticed that your pet jackal was wearing a collar that I would describe as 'ornate.' Very few familiars that we've encountered wear jewelry like that, and I'd almost guess that some clever fellow was using it to disguise how much money he was carrying around. Very clever indeed, the idea of using a familiar as an animated safe. Yet that safe only has about half as much money in it as would be needed to book passage."

Disgust crossed the half elf's face. "Sounds like you have something else in mind. Get on with it."

The man raised an eyebrow, showed a half smile that revealed significantly better teeth than Cit had been expecting under the circumstances -- white and even, the teeth of a predator. "Good. You cut to the chase and didn't worry about an implicit threat to your friend -- which, by the way, was not the intention." (Of course it was.) "I like that. So instead, there is a full-payment, luxury option that ensures first-class accommodations for both you and Felix. It involves doing a small service for us, involving, shall we say, extermination of some of the harbor rats around here. The specific rat whose extermination interests us looks like this." He reached under the table and extracted an image of a man wearing a pince-nez -- and, improbably enough, a tuxedo with emblems of the Reformed Church of Veracia on its lapel.

[Drannin]

Argus lowered his face into his hands. "Oh, weave, now what...?"

**************************************************************************************

Harker had awoken and decided that the room he was staying in was a little drab. A bit dull. It needed some... improvement. With his own special flair, of course!

It took Harker about fifteen minutes to carve some images onto the wall that no denomination would have found acceptable. Harker had been left alone in that room for HOURS. Long enough for the entire room to get utterly defaced. Long enough for Harker's imagination to run dry. Which was saying something. So it was that Harker was considering how to improve upon his handiwork work when the door abruptly opened.

Harker had excellent night vision. He could basically see perfectly in the dark, and hadn't bothered to turn the lights on (not that he could reach them, anyway). Thus, the young lady in a (Disappointingly plain, to Harker) maid's uniform was forced to take a moment to turn on the lights before turning into the room fully... whereupon she froze. Stared. Blushed immensely. "What...in Luminosita's name..."

Harker smiled broadly. "Hiya, baby! Wanna model for me?!" Too late. Her very presence had re-awakened Harker's imagination, and his next creation would certainly involve her...

"Most certainly not!" the maid sputtered. "How dare you?! What do you think you're doing?!" She had actually closed the door out of mortification.

"What are ya doin' just walking into a guest's room?" Harker countered.

"I'm a MAID!" she all but shouted. Trying to look wherever Harker's imagination had not run wild... and failing. The beaver had had a LOT of time on his paws...

"So what? A maid's comin' in this soon after a guest arrives?" The woman paled at this. Wow. That was a shot in the dark. Harker was actually pleased with himself.

[Sareth]

"We'd better hurry before that thing does too much damage."

Lillith was certain that whoever was in the room was up to no good. Both someone's. However, no matter how bad the person was, no matter what skulduggery they were up to, there were limits to what they deserved, and Harker certainly exceeded that. She began moving along at a quickened pace, entering the building and rushing along...