Timor et Fastidium [IC]

[ylvathrall]

It's a blistering hot July day outside, but in the Hanging Gardens it's cool and comfortable. You can hear the burbling of a water feature under the quiet sitar-techno fusion music. A fern is draped over your table, a large booth in the back corner of the building. Arlene sits across from you, her Middle Eastern features set in a hard, grim expression. She is wearing a simple black dress decorated with Sanskrit writing in silver thread, and wearing it very well. Next to you are several people and maybe-people, some you know, some you only know of. You were all asked to come here today in a handwritten note from Arlene which you found in your home, with no sign of how it got there.

"All right, everyone's here," she says, the words clipped and flavored with the faintest trace of an Iranian accent. "We all know about the seal, there is no need to talk around the topic. Which is good, because that is why you are here. As you know, I am working to change the way this seal works, in such a way that this city can be made less foul without risking apocalypse. This work is extremely important, but it must be kept extremely secret as well, because this is a topic which is very volatile. If the wrong person finds out about it, things might explode, or worse yet, the monster keeping the seal in place now may form a bond with someone and reinforce this system."

She pauses a moment, to let that sink in or to collect her thoughts. "Well. As you may imagine, the person I most want to keep in the dark about my work, and the seal itself, is Corin Skavis. He is the most likely to be able and willing to bond with the demon. This must be prevented, and up to this point I have been successful. However. I have, as you may imagine, informers in many places. One of them has heard something which strongly suggests that one of his family, his people, they have found a thread which leads to the seal. If they pull it, they may find out what must be kept hidden. But I cannot act directly on this, cannot end the vampire myself, without it drawing Skavis attention and making them look into it. They would find the same threads, they would pull, and we will all be in very great damage. So. I must ask you to solve the problem. I can give you the name of the informer, the alias of the vampire, and the basics of the thread they found. You may do whatever you see fit to solve the problem; I would myself prefer that it involve ending the vampire, but I understand that you may not be able to do so in a way which avoids suspicion."

[Halae]

In the middle of the seats is the self-styled 'superhero', Protean. Her head, at the moment, is that of a young woman, perhaps in her twenties, with black hair and tan skin. She has the look of a model for the most part, with high cheekbones, full lips, and gorgeous violet eyes. Some may even realize that she looks exactly like a model, though, as she's copied the face out of a magazine.

From the neck down is a different story, however. While she's chosen to leave her head open for the sake of business - it's difficult to have a friendly relationship with people if your face is covered - she's chosen to wear a body that's characterized by a set of interlocking chitinous plates, all in white with blue trim. Anybody who saw her arrive would have noted that she came in wearing the body of an adult woman to throw off suspicion, so aside from her head, this is probably what she looks like going out on those nightly escapades of hers.

Clawed fingers tap against chitin, "Well, not like the white court likes me much anyways. I'm absolutely in. My standard rate applies of course," Those watching can tell she finds that amusing, and Arlene knows what's so funny; she never actually asks for money, just for help when times are tight and getting some good food. The shapeshifter turns to the others though, looking them over, "Everybody else willing to go for this? Could be drawing heat on you."

[Celticbear]

Harold was near an exit for plainly obvious reasons, at least to him. A paper letter could have been faked, *ell, a face could be faked now that he knew about this "Protean". Even though the meeting hadn't turned out to be a trap yet, he'd been on the recieving end of a few, and knew that at any moment someone could come from the shadows, or better yet that exit path he was planning to take. Harold was ready to either run if someone came out from their table or elsewhere, and fight if someone got in his way.

He was listening intently, even though he didn't have ears. Nearly seventy years being in this unclean state, and Harold still didn't know how some bodily functions persisted, and how some ceased working. He could no longer taste, but he could smell. While he could hold and detect the presence of matter, the texture of it was lost to him, but he could still see.

He had his arms folded across his chest, the fabric of his black hooded robes clinging to his skeleton frame all too well. The only hint at the moment of his appearance was the face looming under the hood. Most people on Vegas assumed it was a rather well maintained costume, and Harold never corrected them. The eyeholes were deep, like a twin pair of black, gaping abyssal pits. The entirety of his skull was bleach white and clean however, and eminated a faint purple glow, a serine radiance in contrast to the ghastly figure.

They already think so low of me, Harold spoke. When he did speak, his jawline didn't go up and down with each word, it didn't move at all. It had a hollowness to it, and a bit of an echo like he was speaking from a cave. He continued, I'll go too.

[Mr Stereo1]

Carlos Oramas, the lone mortal at the table, nodded firmly to Alice and Harold's declarations. "You can always count on me to help kill a White, Arlene, but Alice has a point. I don't need to give Skavis new reasons for coming after me and mine and I'm not the most subtle kind of guy." The Vampire's name was almost a curse in the old Mexican's mouth.

"I'm in but I'd want to find a way to frame someone for it. Another White, or some other kind of devil. That way Skavis won't be coming after us and he won't have any reason to suspect Arlene was the one who gave the order by linking us to you." His dark eyes turned carefully to Delphine and more casually to the shrouded skeleton next to him before returning to Arlene. "If you've some idea who'd make a good scapecoat we might have the tricks to make up evidence."

"If you'd all be on board with that change of plans, of course." He allowed, sweeping a hand and small smile across towards the assembled. "With luck we might even get a few more Whites as collatoral."

[Wuff]

"If I can evade my brother, I'm sure the White Court would be hard pressed." Delphine raises a hand to her head, smoothing down a stray hair as she thinks. After a moment, she nods. "I'm obviously in, just need to hear the plan." She flicks her fingers together at her side until a silver hairpin appears there, then uses it to fasten her hair together. Today, her makeup isn't as done as she would like it to be. She had arranged a meeting tonight, and hadn't wanted to irritate her face too much by wearing anything heavy for too long. Of course, upon finding the note she had cancelled right away and spent only a few cursory moments picking out the right scarf for the occasion.

"Of course, I'd be more than happy to - auh - work my magic, if we needed that. I have a few favours to call on," she idly shifts her gaze to meet Carlos' "Or some other trickery, of course..." She liked working in a team, and the more familiar faces around here a pretty big confidence boost. Others, not so much. She just needed a name and she could get started. Her fingers tap impatiently along at the tempo of the music, nails clicking gently.

This is definitely exciting. Delphine hadn't really had much planned for the next upcoming week other than some more networking and a performance or two, no clients. She wouldn't call such things boring, but they were certainly not as exciting as this. "Who do we need to deal with then?"

[ylvathrall]

"A frame job is a good plan. Efficient. Safe. And it may result in two of our enemies fighting each other instead of us. I like it." Arlene's expression is about as much a "smile" as the one you see just before the blackness when a leopard jumps on you out of the night. "So. The informer's name is Martin Torres. He works as a craps dealer in the Venetian. Tell him that you are friends of the friends; he will ask if you are the right kind of people, and you will say that you are as wrong as they come. This is how he will know that you come from me. The vampire, he tells me, called herself Annie Turner, and had an ID which said so as well. This is not her name. I do not know who she is, but she is a Skavis, and I think she is one of Corin's own close family, based on the money and clout she threw around so casually. The trail she found is...well, the details are not important now. But the essence is that I have been making quiet inquiries into the nature of beings such as the sin demon of the seal, and she found out that someone is looking into such things." She nods once, firmly. "Do you require any more information?"

[Halae]

"We'll need to plan this out," Alice says, "This sort of thing falls apart if the person you're framing doesn't have a motive," She considers that a moment, "The Ice Queen has a motive, though; eliminating someone close to Big Cory would be a good way for a winter changeling to give her an in. I'm not sure I could pull off the whole 'winter magic' thing, though, what with not having any spellcasting of my own. Arlene, do you know of any Winter fey that have been causing trouble recently?"

[Mr Stereo1]

"Damn right we'd need to find the right mark, Alice, but wouldn't the Fey be able to prove it wasn't them? They can't lie and Skavis would know that. If the Queen just tells him she didn't do it he'd have to believe her wouldn't he?" Carlos leaves a small opening knowing there was more to Fey 'truth' than he really understood. "Mortifax might work. Some wind magic, a shadowy figure and empty the place of info on the demon and it looks a little like she's just taking an interest. Maybe find someone who's worked for her sometime to implicate."

"Really though I was hoping you'd know someone at odds with Skavis, Arlene. Someone out of town he can't just confront for answers with some MO we can imitate. Then we find a believable patsy we can frame and kill like they were a loose end getting tied up. You know anyone like that Arlene?"

[Celticbear]

The first thing that springs to mind on who would have the best motive to kill a White is another White. Their political idiocy was on the forefront of all of my meetings with them, Harold thought aloud. He held a ringed skeletal hand to his jawbone, stroking it in thought. He shrugged, Then again, I'm not entirely sure how to make it look that way.

[Wuff]

"Mortifax, I don't know. Whites... Maybe we tear off a limb. That way it wont come back to us. Because uh... I don't think we're the type of people to rip off arms normally? Cutting it up into little chunks might come across as a challenge." Delphine inclines her head to Alrlene. Of course the vampires would think that it was her if they left behind a box of cut-up vamp meat.

She pauses then, as if suddenly struck by a thought, and frowns, twirling her hair into a curl around one finger, resting her hand behind her head. "I'm not saying that we should keep any of the uh... The whites... alive, for any reason... But, maybe our first answer shouldn't be violent murder?" She scratches idly at her head. "There must be other options that are beneficial to us. We could turn this 'Annie Turner' against her own people, or send her off into the deep end of some other nasty business. Perhaps that would be better than having her suddenly disappear? She might be loved in the parasite communities, someone who would never be turned on by others. You never know with these sorts of things."

There's something particularly dark about discussing how to end someone's life in a group of not-quite strangers. Delphine just tries to not think of them as "someone." It's easier to sleep at night that way. Not that she's adept at putting them down. The few tussles she has had since arriving have normally just ended in either her or someone else running away, rarely with a fresh bullet hole or two.

"Alternatively, we could just throw the body into the Nevernever?"

[ylvathrall]

"I would advise against that last," Arlene murmurs softly. "It might seem that removing the corpse removes the suspicion, but if anything, the opposite is true. A dead family member is a known factor - and one which, frankly, the Skavis are not terribly likely to either find surprising or care overly much about, barring personal ties or personal enmity. But a missing family member, with no sign of what happened to her? Far more reason to investigate. What if she's betrayed you and left to gather her power?"

[Halae]

"Delphine, I promise that if we can find a way to remove the threat without killing, I'll go for it. The problem is we just don't always have that kind of option at the moment - jailing her would be almost worse, since that'd be putting a bunch of officers in the line of fire, and she could still talk about our involvement. Entrusting her to the nevernever is a good way to put her in the hands of the fey, which is something we don't want for a variety of reasons. We don't have the means to hold her ourselves. Threatening her into leaving isn't something we can do with the resources we've got, especially since it'd mean we'd need to have some way to ensure her silence on the way out, which'd require us to operate in the open."

Alice breathes out and runs a hand down her face, "I know killing people sucks, but this is a vampire - they kill people, and we don't have a lot of other options because of both the powers and the kind of clout she's got."

[Mr Stereo1]

"Don't forget why we're doing this Delphine." Carlos says, avoiding eye contact with the troublesome witch but looking at her forehead challengingly. "We can't let her talk about the demon. As long as she's alive she might, especially if she needs something to trade for protection. We need her dead to be safe." He didn't need the french woman's so called 'morality' putting them all in danger again. "And Alice is right anyway. Vampires aren't people." He mutters in a dark tone.

"But if we're agreed on that," he continues, taking in the mood of the table. "How can we split this up? Someone has to go meet the informer, Martin, and someone could go case out any offices, apartments, or the like we can tie to 'Annie Turner'. For the hit itself, but also so we can try to grab any hard evidence she's got together. Two jobs, I'd like at least pairs going into unknown turf but we could maybe afford two people working on something else if someone's willing to go into the Venetian alone."

"I figure I'd be most use casing out her properties, but maybe I could get some gossip out of someone. The Fieracellis might have tabs on her, or maybe I could pay someone off for access to city records on this 'Turner' alias. DeWitt's unlikely to want to get involved in this but if someone was willing to get dirty in payment maybe he'd risk it for the cause. Anyone got other names or ideas they could get some help out of?"

[Celticbear]

Harold sighs, a sound like grating teeth blasted through a megaphone in the depths of h*ll, and speaks softly, I suppose I can go to the Venetian, I'm confident in my abilities. I'll ask that if you're squeamish, you join the casing job, freezing in the midst of battle, especially one with a vampire, is deadly. The White Court are not human, they are animals and parasites. They pretend to have feelings to draw you in, and f*ck, torture, or cry you to death. Have no mercy for them, and have no feelings for their dead.

[Wuff]

Delphine looks curiously at Carlos while he speaks, noting how he avoids direct eye contact. Does he think she can look into his soul? "Interesting..." She nods along with his and Alice's words though. "I haven't forgotten how important this is. I want to make a difference." She wouldn't have come to the meeting if she wasn't willing to do whatever task Arlene had set for her.

"It may be better if we have Alice and I in separate groups. It would be good for each team to have someone who can be someone else." This seems smart. Smarter than suggesting they just dump the body of a murdered Skavis in fairy territory for sure. Also: "Maybe we shouldn't prostitute ourselves out to the gutter wizard. No offence to him, but I'm not sure I'm quite willing to make those sorts of payments and get 'dirty', if that is what you are suggesting."

"I'm sure I could just ask," Delphine taps her head where her circlet rests, "my ancestor, if we are that desperate." Then again... Walking around on the streets at night hoping to bump into Annie isn't really much safer if she thinks about it like that. Far less reliable too.

[ylvathrall]

Arlene nods shortly. "Getting more information is a priority. We must not only keep her from speaking; we must make sure that there are no written or electronic records for them to find the secrets in. This is absolutely essential. And while I have no great fondness for the broken wizard, I would say: his rituals are not always sexual. Tantra, despite its usual Western interpretation, is a complex and nuanced philosophy and practice."

[Mr Stereo1]

"And frankly you can always hire someone else to do the work you can't or won't do. Lord knows there's enough people in this town who've gotten stuck doing far worse than helping DeWitt." Carlos says mildly "I'll put up the cash to hire some if we need to, unless we could get people from Kenneth, Arlene?"

[ylvathrall]

"I'm afraid not," Arlene says to Carlos. "The broken wizard has made it clear that he will not take any of Ishtar's followers for use in his Tantric rites. Something about clashing belief schema interfering with the ritual energies. Now, I think you know all you need, and this situation is rather urgent, so I will take my leave. Good luck, and let me know how it goes." She stands and leaves.

---

Spoiler: Carlos and Alice

Show

On the way out the door, you are given a folder with some preliminary research into this "Annie Turner." There is a list of known associates, which is quite short, as well as a handful of buildings she's been linked to: a house, an apartment building, an office building, and a...swimming pool?

Spoiler: Harold and Delphine

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You make your way to the Venetian, passing by the canals. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on perspective) you see no sign of Charon on the way in. Inside, you make your way to the cashier cage you were given the number of, where a lean Hispanic man is working the cage. There's no one in line, and no one really very close.

[Mr Stereo1]

"Thanks Arlene, I'll keep in touch." Carlos nods respectfully to her.

Spoiler: Alice and Carlos

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"How do you want to do this kiddo?" Carlos asks "I might have a customer in the apartment or office building who could get some 'urgent servicing' to get us inside. Those friends of hers need looking into, and we'll just have to sneak our way around the house and pool. And by me I mean you. I have a doctor's note that says I can't jump fences at my age."

[Wuff]

Delphine nods to Arlene as she leaves, too busy in her own thoughts to muster a proper goodbye. She murmurs a soft farewell as the footsteps fade away. "What kind of lead do you think Annie was following?" She thinks out loud to herself, brow creased slightly. Arlene seemed as if she was going to explain, then moved onto something else. It doesn't matter too much but she's always worrying about the seal and the impact it had. Any new information would obviously be of interest to her. It could also help the investigation, of course.

"I'll stick with you, then we can visit someone else. Probably that Richard DeWitt, if we need to. I might come in handy if we need to be someone. Or... For just general speaking, probably." She hovers by Harold's side. Going with Carlos wouldn't be the best idea.

She stands, tucking her chair in.

"On y va!"

~~~

On the way, Delphine touches up her make-up a little, taking the time to gloss her lips slightly and darkening the lashes hastily. Eyeliner isn't so good to apply on the move, the thought of tripping over sends shudders through her. As she steps in, she takes a quick look about, flicking her eyes from left to right with a tiny head tilt, spy movie style.

"Hello, Martin? We're here to ask some questions, it shouldn't take up too much time. We're uh... 'Friends of the friends.'" She studies the guy, weighing his reaction. It's totally possible she's got the wrong person. That's happened before to her, the last time she messed up, she got a look like she was nuts.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Harold and Delphine

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"Yeah, that's what they all say," the cashier drawls casually. "But I'll be honest. I'm just not sure you're the right sort of people for this place. Maybe try another casino?"

Spoiler: Carlos

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It takes some time, but you do your digging into the various properties that this "Annie Turner" has been linked with. The house was bought by someone using that alias two months ago, and your contact at the county tells you that she paid cash, up front, asking price. Since then, a friendly competitor in the security business says her company was hired to install some seriously heavy duty security systems - motion detectors, redundant locks, electronic alarms, even (she hints without quite saying) a biometric security system in the basement. The apartment building is owned by a company that traces back to Big Corey, but "Annie Turner" hasn't actually been linked to it specifically very closely at all - she isn't tied to the company, and hasn't been personally noted as either visiting or doing really anything else there. The office building has an office rented by "Annie Turner," but you can't dig up anything really meaningful about it, and your best guess is that it's a sham, something she just rents to keep up appearances. The pool is something of an oddity: it's a small community pool, nothing fancy, and she has a membership there which she bought two weeks ago. One of your workers takes his kids there, and through his contact you find out that "Annie Turner" has only visited once - she rented one of the lockers, put something in it, and left.

[Celticbear]

Spoiler: Steinulfr and Delphine

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Harold simply stood by with his hood drawn low, and his hands folded. He didn't want to attract any more unneeded attention. Besides, Delphine was the talky one.

[Wuff]

"We’re as wrong as they come.'" The French-British woman enunciates the whole sentences, then looks him in the eye, grinning. "No, seriously, look at me, do I look like a gambler to you," she points her thumb at Harold, "He’s definitely not. Unless he’s keeping things from me.'"

Her stance relaxes, the place no longer seems quite as creepy and clandestine. All these silly code words were a bit of a child’s game really.

"We’re just here to establish some facts. We both know that whoever Annie Turner really is, she is capable of causing a lot of damage. A lead would be really helpful in stopping her."

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Harold and Delphine

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Martin relaxes as you give the countersign. "Yeah, well, tell our...friend that I think she needs to move fast on this. Like, real fast. See, this girl, she was talking about sin demons. Talking like she knew what she was talking about. She was at my table, nobody really pays any mind to craps dealers when they're playing, and she was talking to another guy. The other guy wasn't saying much at all, and funny thing, I dunno what he looked like. Like I know he was wearing a suit but everything else...it was just a blur. Can't remember it at all. And that ain't right. And then she said the thing that really spooked me, which was that she'd heard that someone was asking about it, but like with emphasis, like It. She knows something."

[Halae]

"Thanks Arlene, I'll keep in touch." Carlos nods respectfully to her.

Spoiler: Alice and Carlos

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"How do you want to do this kiddo?" Carlos asks "I might have a customer in the apartment or office building who could get some 'urgent servicing' to get us inside. Those friends of hers need looking into, and we'll just have to sneak our way around the house and pool. And by me I mean you. I have a doctor's note that says I can't jump fences at my age."

"Sounds reasonable to me. Is there a particular face It'd be important to put on for this sort of thing, or should I freestyle it?" She also considers for a longer moment, "The apartment is more likely to have something we can use."

[Mr Stereo1]

"For our first flyby? We want to be strangers. Freestyle it." Honestly the things kids said these days. ""We'll need to get some word out first, get whatever our friends already know. Figure out where to head after that."

He pulls out a very nice smartphone in a protective case and an old brick nokia. "Meet back here?"

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

Later when he returned Carlos greets Alice and brings her up to speed on his findngs.

"Monster's barely been anywhere but the house, and the security there's almost good enough for me. That'll need prep wth the team but worst part's the biometic lock. If you had her body do you think you could fool that?" Carlos asks this thumbing out some models on his smartphone for same day delivery in case they need to check or practice. He orders some of the other kit like the motion detector and cameras too to be safe. "Problem is she's got a little stash in a lockers at the pool. If she's got on there..." He lets the thought hang.

"I figure we'll need to ht everywhere at once to be sure. Problem is I've no clue where she'd have her stash in the apartments and if Corey's the owner he'll have access once Annie is out of the picture. We need to go there and figure it out. Your hero's intuition at work"

Spoiler

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Can I make a Resources automatic passed roll for buying the same systems as Annie had installed or similar to enable Advantage rolls to practice fooling them with our magic and disabling those models generally?

[Halae]

Alice grimaces at the question, "I... think it'd be possible to copy her directly, sure, but I've got no experience with that sort of thing. I'd almost certainly get something wrong," and she knows, almost instinctively, that'd it'd require eating her, or at least drinking her blood. They're trying to stop vampires, here, not let the nominal superhero become one.

"But for the apartment, we've got options there. If you can find something for me that smells like her, I'll be able to find her scent in the building, and that'll take us to where she spends her time in the apartments. That should tell me the where, and the what will come from that."

[Wuff]

Is this guy a mortal? Did he know she was a vampire? Delphine tilts her head slightly. More importantly, does he even know exactly what Annie was actually talking about? She’ll ask Arlene at a later date, though this information was important. "Do you still have the ID she left behind or has that been passed on already?'" It could be potentially useful for divining or scrying, possibly. It’s probably a fake though, and she wonders if the artificial nature of it would throw the whole thing into whack. She never really “got” straight-up magic, it was all symbols and meanings, but beyond that she had little idea how the stuff worked.

She mutters to Harold, "Sounds like she has a friend versed in glamours or something, Veils...? We should be prepared for that.” Then, she claps suddenly, perhaps surprisingly, "Did she give any indication of where she was going to be going after that? ”

"What are you thinking?” She nods again to Harold, wondering at his opinions.

[Celticbear]

I am not entirely versed in Thaumaturgy, I cannot block her magic from afar. If we get the drop on her, I could probably counter any veil or illusion she may throw up, but again if she's already hidden I can do nothing, Harold whispered back to Delphine in French. Talking in his native tongue felt good, given that he didn't have a tongue anymore. It reminded Harold he used to be human, and he needed all the reminders he could get.

I'm thinking that if he has anything of hers, I can convince our friend in the sewers to throw some divination our way. I live down there, he and I have an... understanding, Harold retorted, again in French.

[ylvathrall]

Spoiler: Carlos

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You can automatically grab all the motion detectors, alarms, locking systems, and such. The one exception is the biometric lock, because your contact really just hinted that such a thing might be involved - she wouldn't give you details on what her company installed there. It could be anything from a fingerprint lock to a retinal scanner, or even something more specialized and harder to get - the kind of hardware that's supposed to be limited to top secret government installations and the like. In fact, that might be why your friend wouldn't tell you quite what it was. If it was something that she's not even supposed to know exists, there would be a lot more risk in talking about it than just telling you about normal security systems.

And yes, practicing on the normal systems would give you a free tag whenever you're dealing with one while you're in the building.

Spoiler: Harold and Delphine

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"I don't have her ID. I got a copy, but I dunno if that'll be enough to do whatever voodoo you do." Martin suddenly grins, a nasty conspiratorial sort of grin. "But I snagged something else - a charm or something. She was toying with it, seemed to think it was good luck or something - she touched it every time she rolled or bet. But I picked her pocket while she was walking by, and I don't think she noticed."