Port Lorrel

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Feel like giving a description of Carlos' gun, Graybeard? You can even write it from Jamie's perspective if you like, or you can PM me...]

OOC: Weaponry really isn't my thing unless it has a yield in the kilotons. Figure a small-caliber revolver of some kind, like an early Colt but firing .30-caliber rounds or something like that. Nothing fancy. This means the guy was REALLY careless: walking around not just with gun pulled, but hammer back.

Possibly significant information that Jamie would not know (unless I misremember the sequence of events), but other gunslingers in the crowd (notably Roger) would: whatever it is, it's the same kind of heat that the three cops the night before were packing.

[Graybeard]

"Okay, here's what I've learned," Titus told Elke. "There really was a Lost Veracian Mine."

Elke sat back and listened as Titus explained what he'd found on Tsuipedia, thinking, maybe these Tsuirakuan gadgets were useful after all. The Eisenfaust had been considerably more aggressive about adopting Tsuirakuan information technology than their competitors had, and they were already seeing business opportunities from it; just the prospects for making money off of Crystalnet porn were awesome, all by themselves ... But back to the topic at hand:

"It really existed, and there are some artifacts in a museum somewhere in Tsuirakushiti to prove it," Titus said. "They were strange little bits recovered from the mine along with the money-making stuff. Even the Tsuirakuans don't know exactly what they were supposed to do. They might be dwarven technology, but there are rumors that the Tsuirakuans learned that they came from a time even before the dwarves. Nothing has ever been made public on that, though. Whatever they were, they apparently weren't weapons or anything else useful, and they weren't magical as far as anyone could tell, so eventually the Tsuirakuans lost interest in them.

"Otherwise, it's the usual lost-mine routine -- dried-up old Veracian prospector brings in samples of gold and mithral, says there's more back in the hills, even brings out enough to make a bit of money, but disappears without telling anyone exactly where the thing is. Most likely the Veracian got bushwhacked by some damn fools that didn't see he was more valuable alive. The people who lived around there were interested in the gold and mithral, of course, but didn't care much about the artifacts, which is why they wound up in Tsuiraku.

"All that's known about a location is that it was somewhere in the Mountains of Madness." (Hm; life imitates art, Elke thought.) "That's a pretty rough journey from here, but doable."

Elke thought about it, made her decision. "Okay, good work. Let's find a way to dangle that in front of the crew over at the World Traveler. It sounds like something they might jump at, and you know what they say about the idle mind... or was that idle mine?" Titus laughed politely at the joke -- he'd heard worse -- and excused himself, as Elke turned back to the thaumatopathological report on Sarge that had just come in.

[Sareth]

I eyed the pistol in my hand. It looked remarkably familiar to me. In fact...

From my robes I produced another pistol, one of my own. I held the two up, side by side. "Hmm... Same manufacturer, but this one's older, I think." I waggled the pistol from the floor. "Slightly smaller caliber too. But the frame, the design of the barrel, the cylinder..." I cocked the hammer back, spinning it. "No clicks. Just a smooth rotation." I did the same with mine. "See? But listen." I lowered the hammer, then recocked it, repeating the procedure with the second pistol. With both there was a distinct pattern to the hammer's cocking action. Click Clickick ... click. "These were made by the same company." I lowered the hammers on both pistols one last time, then began slowly squeezing. On my pistol the hammer began to rise, while the other remained still. Before the hammer pulled back very far, I stopped up, letting it ease back into place. "Clumsy. He had to have been running with it cocked... Very sloppy."

I sat down, eying the two pistols. Troubling...

[Graybeard]

[OOC: This is long; feel free to cut to the last couple of paragraphs. /OOC...]

THAUMATOPATHOLOGY REPORT, POST-MORTEM
PHILIP W. SARGENT
PERFORMED BY W. LISLE RABBITFOOT, D. Thm.

SUMMARY: This 39-year-old, deceased Farrelian male, known to the examiner from previous thaumatopathological studies, presents posthumously with numerous injuries, some mechanically induced, some magically induced. Cause of death is inferred to be asphyxiation compounded by pulmonary edema. No interpretation of life force (Grey) is possible because of interference of magic of a necromantic nature, possibly an Animate Dead spell.

Hmmm, Elke thought as she started to read. This didn't sound like Marcus' work at all. Better pay a little more attention to this one ...

SUPERFICIAL EXAMINATION

The subject is a recently deceased, Farrelian male of 39 years of age, previously seen (while alive) by this examiner for removal of a Charm spell of unknown provenance. She remembered that episode well... He presents with unknown internal injuries apparently leading to death. All limbs and external organs are present and intact. Pooling of blood in extremities has produced lividity consistent with an elapsed time since death of roughly 8 to 10 hours. However, the apparent interference of an Animate Dead spell -- see below -- in the normal onset of rigor mortis leaves open the possibility that the elapsed time was significantly greater. All that can be said with any certainty is that the time elapsed since expiration of the Animate Dead is fixed at at least 8 hours based on external examination.

Well, that was interesting. They'd got the body to Rabbitfoot's office right around 8 in the morning, so Sarge had made the ungraceful transition from "undead" to "just dead, second time and permanently" some time around midnight or earlier. It sounded like he hadn't been "just dead, first time" for very long. That was useful to know. She skipped down through the internal examination, catching only a few snatches ...

... searing of the buccal mucosa consistent with aspiration of hot gases ...
... signs of magical healing of the labia oris (lips) and hard palate. Petechiae are still present suggesting incomplete magical healing ...
... anoxic changes in the upper circulatory system ...
... pulmonary edema ...
... flaccid paralysis of the diaphragm ...

The medical list went on, in tedious detail. Elke couldn't sort through all of the jargon, but one thing was clear, and it didn't make sense: Sarge had taken a lot of damage, likely fatal if untreated, from something hot in his mouth, someone had healed him of that damage, and then someone killed him again. What were these people?

She skipped down to the interesting part:
THAUMATOPATHOLOGY
A weak magical aura pervades the entire body, with stronger emanations around the face. Faint traces of residual mana are widespread externally, with traces of residual mana in the oral cavity and on the eyes as well. The whole-body aura was studied with a Holbrook lens and determined to be necromantic in nature, consistent with application of an Animate Dead spell. Weaker remnant traces of a Healing spell are present but are inferred to have preceded the Animate Dead, most likely by minutes rather than hours. Finally, an aura of Conjuration magic is present on all external surfaces, consistent with post-mortem casting of an Invisibility spell.

Aha. So someone tried to cover up what they'd done to Sarge. That might be useful to know. Then the finding that made her blood run cold:



No investigations could be conducted on the remnant Grey (life force) of the subject, as the Grey is obscured by a Necromantic spell, almost certainly Animate Dead.

Well, that about clinched it, and it changed some things. Animate Dead wasn't in Marcus' bag of tricks, as far as Elke and her sources knew. That meant that someone else was screwing around with Sarge.

Although there were plenty of mysteries left in what was happening at the World Traveler, some things were getting clearer. She'd better get on with Operation Jamie; the big shots wanted to make sure that nothing went wrong there. Operation Marcus needed to get going, too, and there were indications that there was someone else in the party that should be looked at. She'd have to talk to the big shots about that.

And as for the rest of them, Elke swore as she put away the report, if they were going to treat Sarge like that, then not right now, but after the important people had been secured, she'd see the others roast over a low fire.

[AdamZero]

Marcus didn't like this, everything since coming to this inn had been spirialling deeper and deeper into some grade A horse sh**. He looked to the person holding the guns, and took on a serious expression.

"This whole town is probably gonna get dangerous by day's end. I say we, as in me and your group, bug out of down and figure things out in a place we can see trouble coming from a decent distance away." He drew out a bag from Boris and started pouring breads into it. He tied the bag off and put it back up Boris's head, before drawing out his staff and traveling cloak. "I'll wait outside of town, exact side opposite of the port. I'm a bit sketchy on most of the terrain, I move quick, but hey, that's life."

He looked back at the gun wielder, holding out a hand in friendship. "My name's Marcus by the way. And you?"

(ooc: I don't think jamie and Marcus ever really met properly.)

[Weirdonian]

Toivo had awoken to the sounds of various screams and now heard a great commotion upstairs and people running to and fro. Toivo wasn't exactly a morning person and it took a great deal of mental effort to convince himself to get up and out of bed. As he sat up, he felt that something within his room was awry.

"Oh, come on! ... Suuuure there is!" Toivo said, rolling his eyes at the rock on his nightstand. He then froze stiff as he heard something shuffle under the bed. "I do not need this kind of crap in the morning!" Toivo said in a loud, disgusted whisper. Toivo slowly removed a sock, balled it up and then threw it across the room, hoping to attract and distract whatever it was so he could make his getaway. As it quietly hit the floor, a great amount of shuffling eminated from under Toivo's bed and a short, rectangular object bolted across the room and right to the sock. Toivo could now see exactly what it was: a footstool.

"A footstool?!" Toivo declared a bit too loudly and the footstool turned it's attention on him. It made a running jump up onto the bed and sauntered right up to Toivo, whom was now barely containing his various humors. To his surprise and great confusion, it nuzzled him and jumped around playfully on the bed. "You have got to be kidding me!" Toivo said aloud as he balled up another sock and threw it across the room. The footstool quickly fetched it and returned it to him. He reached out and carefully began petting it, which apparently made the footstool very happy, at which time Toivo began laughing out loud.

The loveable footstool sat on the bed as Toivo got dressed. "Well, now, what should we call our newfound friend? How about... Stooly! Yeah, that's a good- oh, be quiet you. Hold down the fort while I... I mean, we head to the bathroom... I know it is... C'mon, Stooly!" Stooly jumped from the bed and followed Toivo down the hall and into the bathroom, ignoring the commotion upstairs and down in the loby until his business was concluded. Afterwards, Toivo exited and returned to his room. Rifling through some of his things, he found a long and durable leather strap which he then atached to an exposed nail head towards Stooly's rear. He then gathered up Domo from the nightstand and headed downstairs to see if there was any breakfast left. He found Jamie and another young fellow talking.

"Morning." Toivo said to the two as he smiled... and as he held a light-tan rock in one hand and a leash that apparently held a friendly, green footstool in check in the other. "I suppose I'll have to eat my breakfast quickly so that we can all leave in haste again, eh?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

[Viking-Sensei]

Lucas came down the stairs, picking bits of splintered and slightly charred wood out of his hair... followed closely by Ayiee, who was carrying a table leg like a club and trying to look menacing, despite her rather skimpy outfit. "Upstairs is cleared. Table had a bad attitude, but the chairs were friendly. Ish. Anyway, it occurs to me now in this late hour that if magic doesn't see or get stopped by walls floors are probably not that much of an issue either. That said, we're going to go check the celler to make sure that we don't have a herd of wandering kegs attacking people by lunchtime."

Ayiee reached down and petted Toivo's footstool.

"Riiiight." Lucas said, turning his back. "Toivo, after you're done inhaling that food, see who all you can find and have them meet us back here... we need to decide if we're moving on, or if free room and board due to the abandonment of the inn by it's owners and operators via death or fleeing due to common sense kicking in is worth sticking around here for a couple more days. Also... see if one of the gunslingers wants to try and collect another night's rent from everyone else staying here. Might as well try and turn a profit out of this nightmare."

[Graybeard]

[OOC:

"Also... see if one of the gunslingers wants to try and collect another night's rent from everyone else staying here. Might as well try and turn a profit out of this nightmare."

Hmf. Don't you think that with all the stuff going on last night, everything larger, or at least smarter, than a cockroach would have got out while the getting was good?... /OOC:]

--------------

Grope paused in his communion with the Many-Fathers-God-Wisdom-Robe and asked himself the very sensible question, now what?

He was standing at the edge of the coastal forest, looking at the coastal highway that ran north from Port Lorrel to Growf alone knew where. It clearly wasn't a terribly busy road, but he'd still seen enough Small Ones on it to know that he'd be better off avoiding it. Going straight inland didn't look attractive; the flatlands were cultivated, and there weren't many places to hide a nine-foot-tall biped from curious (horrified?) eyes. South was Lorrel, definitely not an option. So: north, sticking to the forest.

Fortunately, he didn't have to go far before the countryside roughened. A ridge line was coming down from the central mountains, rendering the land too difficult to farm, and better yet, providing forest for him to follow inland. Trolls are creatures of the woods and mountains, and this terrain looked like a veritable sidewalk to him, if not a highway. To the northeast he could see the mountains themselves in the misty distance. Just one thing remained to be done: get across the road at a cut through the ridge without being seen. He stopped, looked, listened, just as he had told his children lo those many years ago, and went for it...

All was well. He vanished back into the woods and resumed loping toward the Mountains of Madness.

-----------------

Must be a bit of PMS, Elke told herself; it was about time for it. Ten minutes ago she'd been going through mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to get that party at the World Traveler out of town; five minutes ago she'd been vowing to kill them all, except of course for Jamie and Marcus. It was time to take a detached, professional view of what was going on.

Her orders were clear: evaluate Jamie and Marcus, and above all, keep them alive. Well, she thought, that settled it: there was going to be no way to do that except by keeping them in the company of Sarge's killers, whether she liked it or not. Time to swallow her personal enmity and do what had to be done. She summoned Titus and sent him on his way to the World Traveler with the "manuscript" he'd created about the Lost Veracian Mine. That should get them moving ... and vengeance could come later.

[Sareth]

"Jamie." After a moment of hesitation, I put the two pistols back in my clothes and placed my hand in that of this Marcus fellow, giving it a quick shake. I resisted the urge to wipe my palm on my cloak after. There was something distinctly weird about the man, and given the fact I'd just watched a table eating a bell hop, that was saying something.

I considered Marcus suggestion that we join forces and get out of town. It seemed a distinctly good idea in my view. In spite of all that was going on, I still recalled that one fellow had bolted out of here calling for the cops. While the gun had me convinced this fellow wouldn't have run to the cops, why take chances? Of course, it might mean teaming up with this guy and his bread stealing ways...

At that moment, I felt something bumping my leg. Looking down I saw an exuberant footstool rubbing up against me.

"Morning." Toivo said with a smile. "I suppose I'll have to eat my breakfast quickly so that we can all leave in haste again, eh?"

I opened my mouth to point out to Tovio that a footstool was molesting my leg. However, before I could say a word, Lucas and Ayiee came by. While Ayiee distracted the stool (thank Luminosita... being molested by furnature was way off the scale on my weird-o-meter) I listened as Lucas put out his instructions to Tovio. Get everyone together and have a little meeting about if we were leaving or staying. Collect the rent from anyone who hadn't left yet.

I smiled. I suppose the risk of the cops swinging by might be acceptable. But the moment the meeting was held, I was voting for hauling ass for safer climbs. I was curious how fast the Eisenfaust could keep up if we did that.

I stepped over to the counter, hopping up to sit on it, my legs stretched out along the top, and idly tapped my knee with one of my pistols. "Oi. I'll deal with anyone comes over to check in and check out..." I smiled. "They check in, but they don't check out. Until we do." I nodded to Lucas. "Go have fun in the basement. Then let's get the hell out of here."

[Tiamat]

Jonathan watched the footstool with interest. For all intents and purposes, it seemed to have become a familiar - although closer inspection showed the effect was unstable. He really wished he knew what the hell was going on with magic around here - maybe it'd be over by the time they got to where ever they were going that wasn't here. In the meantime, Jonathan collected a still spluttering Winston and went back to the kitchen to grab more food before the man with the strange skeleton could finish stealing all of it.