[WFRP2e] The Power of One - Part 2 - "Transire Benefaciendo"

[MrAbdiel]

Bella must have been hoping you had an idea; she frowns, and puffs in frustration.

"Everyone gets bored," Salvi notes without reproach; "I did, anyway. But I never felt the need to turn on my family and become a thief. There's a world of things he could do - join a mercenary crew, or the rat-catchers, or work a farm, or go to school. Why do this? It makes no sense."

"It's me," Biagio says with a despairing sigh, rubbing his cheeks. "He blames me for his mother leaving. He might be right - it was painful split, and in the end we just couldn't get on and she packed her things and went back to Tobaro. But I've raised him since then - it's been him and me. I just wish-..."

He cuts off his commentary as Maso Cestié makes his way down the stairs. He has been through the emotional ringer, but when all is said and done, he seems less burdened coming down than when he went up. "Well... He's still mad, for sure. I can't blame him. But I said what I needed to say - maybe that's enough. We'd better start heading back to Grifone's house, before the light starts fading."

What follows is one of the most Tilean things you have ever seen: three brothers and a son surrounding Maso and telling him over and over how he must stay for dinner, he must stay over night, he must accept their hospitality; how can he insult his family like this, how can he imagine he won't stay, how has he come back into their lives to slander their wives cooking by not sampling it, and so on. The haranguing is atleast fourty percent conveyed with hand gestures - forefingers pinched to thumbs, wrists flapped at chin height - and is one hundred percent toothless excoriation.

You are forced to stay - trapped in a den of Cestiés.

At the end of the day, the displays in the shop are moved and tables cleared and pushed together to make a massive, long dining table, and then a second one along side it; and the Cestié clan descends to fill the building with the smells of fine cooking and a thunderstorm of gossip. In the kitchen, the women of the family swarm and gabble and help and correct each other's cooking. It is a job that would require a much smaller number, but it is an excuse to have their discussion away from the men, who themselves have a great deal to catch up about and yak and brag around the table; while a horde of children play elaborate games of make beleive, or a regional chase and catch variant called Rats and Terriers.

Between the patriarch and his maid, the sons and their wives and children and the children's children and some of the children's children's children, and the wives, husbands and unmarried sweethearts of this extended clan, there are almost a hundred Cestié's or Cestié adjacent parties in attendance. Almost half of them are Salvi's truly Olympian contribution - seven daughters, five sons-in-law, eighteen grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. You and Bella are free to move around the tables - the personalities of the horde run the gamut but most are genuinely sweet and very interested in meeting you - but Maso and Biagio spend most of their time seated together, talking to each other when Maso is not fielding questions from his other relatives. A place is put out for Augusto, who does not show - but it is important for Biagio that his son never for a second, even if glancing through the window as he sneaks by, think he is unwanted or unwelcome.

Hard shelled maxenete crab, bean soup with noodles, a half dozen kind of small, fried, strongly salted and onion'd fish are present in plenty; in shorter supply, but insisted upon you, are a additional dishes of chopped and fried beef liver with onions and leeks, and some supple cuts of a creature you've never seen - a bizarre creature of the water that, before it is prepared, looks on the chopping block like a slimy wet hand full of boneless fingers, with eyes at the wrist which then transitions into a broad... sleeve, or hat, or something. The Sepe, is cooked and then served in an inky thick black sauce which you are assured it makes itself and; but which also does the work of dying the bed of fettucini with which it was cooked black as well. It is unappetizing by its strangeness to look at - but if you can get past that, it is a rare and worthy taste indeed.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

How does Taalia spend her time at CestiéCon?

Also, if you wouldn't mind... make me a listening based perception test for something that occurs the next day (thus your fate points are available).

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia gave a point conceding shrug, the question of how to bring the wayward son back into the fold a puzzling one that she had not had to encounter before. Normally if she didn't get along with someone she just didn't interact with them. But this was a different problem entirely. It's not that she didn't want to help - she just didn't know how.

This puzzle was compounded by the cubsequent clan gathering, as a hundred Cestie's poured in from the area to celebrate the return and departure of an infamous member of their group: Maso Cestie. He was a mad genius now, but back then he had been the black sheep, spoken only of in disapproving, hushed whispers by the elders of the franchise. This only made the event endearing, because it was clear that despite Maso's prior trespasses, he truly was missed.

Taalia found herself in the thick of the event, having long come out of her shell over the past few years since her time as a slave and a fish out of water. Her height and hair color drew immediate questions and stares, with numerous children wanting her to hoist them into the air, much as she had at that first festival she had visited, her arms and stature pushing the kids close to 9 or so feet into the air where her strong hands retained them so that she could 'fly' them around as a recreation of Maso's flying machine. When she wasn't providing childrens entertainment, she sat among the adults and enjoyed a wide variety of sea food-based Tilean cuisine. Taalia noticed the difference almost immediately, comparing the dishes here with her hometown of Bella Collina. Being much more inland, Bella Collina was more hearty in its reliance on pork, mutton, beef, pasta's and potatoes, while here it was sea-food, with squid and fish dominating the menu along with sweet wines and sherries - and Taalia loved it!

She told stories of her travels, she answered honestly if some hushed quietly and asked if she was the girl that escaped the ratmen and she spoke of their journey from Bella Collina to their present point and the planned destination ahead - all the way to Altdorf!

To see the ease with which the girl enjoyed herself and provided a warm socialite to the event and compare it with her initial awkward, well-intentioned bunglings 2-3 years ago, spoke of a world of change.

[MrAbdiel]

Gorged on hospitality and tuckered out from (somewhat ironically) powering the imaginary flight of children on your day off from powering mechanical flight for yourself, you and Bella are afforded a room upstairs. It's a genuine bedroom, but it has been cannibalized by the store below and made into storage for timbre lengths for window frames, small wooden crates theoretically for the storage of surplus key blanks and assorted widgets. Many of them seem to be empty and filled only with the ambition to get ahead of inventory shortages, and so the operation of driving them to one side and freeing up the double bed beneath to change the sheets for you and Bella to crash in is not so time consuming in the end.

The family clears out in the evening, leaving the shop/home with its live-in occupants and guests to bed down. Peppe sleeps in the same room he has for almost nine decades, with his maid Sylvia nearby to aid him as required. You and Bella sleep in the 'spare' room upstairs. Biagio shares his room with Maso in a cot put out for him, after a brief argument about who should use the bed, and who should sleep in the less comfortable cot. And below, in the back room immediately behind the shop itself, Franchino's two grandsons, Elmuccio and Buonamico, share their living space with workbenches and supply.

But your eyes snap open in the early hours of the morning, and adjust rapidly adjust to the gloom. You don't know why initially. It's perfectly quiet - but you plunge into your foggy, dream-blurred short term memory and find the sense of the sound that intruded and triggered your sensitive instincts - the click of a lock's tumblers falling into place, downstairs. Even your hearing couldn't hear a perfectly well oiled lock from that far away - but, you suppose, a family of locksmiths might know not to over-oil their locks on account of preferring to hear them manipulated, during the night. And of the three big locks on the front door of the shop, or those on all the windows whose bars are slid into place at night, who is to say one isn't a little loud?

Your body wants sleep, but your instincts give you no repreive - someone is breaking in, downstairs. Your armor lies piled over a chair to one side of the bed, with your weapons in arms reach. Donning that could take a precious minute... But how likely are burglars to be ready to fight? And have Elmuccio and Buonamico, much closer to the sound downstairs, also heard the noise and are waking to prepare themselves right now?

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

You could take the girl out of the slave pits, but you couldn't take the slave pits out of the girl. Not entirely. That primitive, but entirely life-saving instincts for self-preservation and danger awareness, would never depart the shepardess, now matter how far she went in society. In the pits, death came quietly. Your fellow slaves didn't wait until you were active - they smothered you in your sleep.

It was with that understanding that Taalia's refusal to go back to sleep once she had been awakened by the scritch-scratching from downstairs could be better explained. Her body wanted to, but that little claw-like sounds eminating from the front door of the building might as well have been gunshots going off next to her head.

Silently, not wanting to wake Bella in case of a false alarm, Taalia slipped from her bed. Quietly, she grabbed one of her pistols and her sword and slowly tippie-toed down the stairs, carefully allocating her weight distribution to maximise her silence, as she drew herself near a shadowed corner from where she could view the interloper once they had succeeded.

The door handle would turn...turn...turn...the door would slowly open, the thief would wait a few moments to listen to the still night before entering quietly.

Click! the hammer on a pistol being drawn back and the schlink! of steel drawn from a scabbard, its beautiful blade shimmering whenever it caught the moonlight.

"Do not move."

She'd close the door with her body, shutting off the escape route.

"You had best make your explanation, phenomenally good..."

[MrAbdiel]

The face at the other end of the pistol barrel is youngish, perhaps a little older than you; with a mop of curly brown hair. There are another six figures behind him, and all are similarly rough looking youths with empty sacks under their arms and sheathed knives at their hips. What makes the one in front so distinctive, as he stands up slowly when confronted so, is the ring of keys in his hand that then slip into his pocket. Surprise and fear flicker through his features; but then he takes on an aspect of the criminal charmer, caught in the act. He raises his hands and backsteps.

"Well. We were just stopping by, see? Thought we might poke around, maybe do some stealing. But given that the situation reveals the premises to be a little more occupied than I prefer... I suppose we'll just be on our way."

His eyes - noticeably blue, even in the limited light of the spaced street lamps that are kept burning - track up and down over you. "...But you made it worth the trip all the same, mia gnocca."

With that, he makes a loose handsignal to his companions, and they begin easing back, apparently ready to abort their criminal aspirations for the night.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia narrowed her eyes in descriptive recognition.

"Augusto?"

[MrAbdiel]

"Never heard of him."

The hoodlum's face doesn't flash with alarm as if he's been caught; but the stacked insincerity in the tone suggests he does, atleast, know the name. Then he turns his back on your gun, and moves off with his thugs into the dim city night.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia narrowed her eyes.

This punk clearly knew who Augusto was.

He was also trying to come over here with a gang of men to rob his family's house.

Taalia stepped forward.

"Maybe your ears need cleaning Singore: I said your explanation needs to be Phenomenally Good!" she shouted the last two words, trusting it would rouse at least someone else.

"You're with that gang, aren't you? Those Basket Weavers, or something!"

Her voice was noticeably louder now, deliberately trying to rouse the rest of the house.

[MrAbdiel]

You redouble your threat, but the hoodlum seems to decide he's figured the limits of your harm - willing to defend the house with lethal force, not to shoot him in the back walking away. He raises a hand to wave, backhanded to you, over his shoulder. Nearby, Elmuccio and Buonamico begin to stir and move around in the room behind the shop; roused by your shouting, but likely still gathering their senses.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

The question is now: does Taalia wish to shoot this fellow in the back for the audacity of it all? Or does she let him call her bluff, and walk?

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


Taalia's eyes widened. Her mouth opened in a rictus of anger.

How dare this punk turn his back on her! He had the audacity to break into THIS house and then dismiss her and leave as if he owned the place?!

Taalia pulled the trigger on her pistol, its lead bullet shearing out and striking a limb with brutal, crushing force.

When the small group of men heard the shot erupt, smoke billowed out to fill door-frame.

"AHHH!!!!!" that banshee wail as Taalia rocketed forth from the mist, wild-eyed, screaming and her sword in both hands as she brought it about in a glittering arc across the nearest man.

If the neighbourhood was fast asleep a second ago, it wasn't anymore...

[MrAbdiel]

The round slaps into the back of one figure's arm; into the upper arm, out the other side, into the hand on the other side. With a shriek of pain, he drops the sack he was carrying and falls to his knees as you scream and rush out into the street.

"Cagna pazza! Run, run!"

They run. Another figure stops to grab the reeling, cringing man you shot and drags him to his feet as they break into a dash, leaving bloody speckles on the cobbles behind them as you roar out after them.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

They're running. Give me a number between one, and infinity, that represents the number of 10 second rounds Taalia is willing to spend pursuing these petty thieves with (her) lethal intent.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni


The thieves chose the wrong house tonight.

"AHhH!!!!" the gentle shepardess wailed, swinging her beautifully crafted blade about in an arch that caught some poor bastard in his chest as a fountain of blood errupted from the grievous, terrible wound.

Before the girl could 'unsheath' her weapon and finish the man off, the group scattered into the alleywayts, allowing the instincts of the thief to overcome them as Taalia swung out again in fury, only to swipe at air.

"ArgghhH!!!" she bellowed, blade slick with blood across the street, her eyes wild and her trap muscles flexed as she screamed fury and anger at the pack of rotten, rat-like thieves scurrying off in fear, her chest heaving from each ragged breath.

[MrAbdiel]

You notice no guards come running, despite your howling - and the people of the city, those not in the house behind you, know not to emerge and stick their necks into a screaming street fight.

But you notice this after the rage goes away. The young man breifly transfixed on your blade stumbles away to a bleeding run, and you let him go; the rest of the gang scattering into the dark streets. All but the pair -the shot man, and the young woman helping him along. They reach the far end of the street, and the wounded man slouches to the ground. His friend tries to hold him up, and you hear with your excellent hearing a choking sob as she yields to the situation, and lets him go; scampering up the side of a building and over the roof, away into the night like her colleagues. Only the silent body of their one member, and the trail of blood leading back to the empty sack by the Locksmiths' door, mark that they came.

Elmuccio and Buonamico, Franchino's grandsons, are there in the doorway when you turn around; sweaty faced and pale, barefoot in their nightclothes, each holding a metalworking hammer in one hand, and a knife in the other. They look on with confusion and bewilderment as your choler settles; and soon, Biagio and Signore Maso Cestié manifest behind them, too; the former with a hatched in hand, the latter with lantern lit.

"What... Taalia, what happened here?", Signore Cestié asks with alarm; looking down at the sack.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

The girl slowly subsided, her beautifully crafted blade shimmering in the moonlight with the crimson color of its intended trade.

When the fog of fury and war slowly rescinded from her thoughts and relinquished their grip from her actions, the shepardess had to manually pump the air into her lungs and and exhale those deep, hot breaths. The streets of this city may be use to casual violence, but she was not, even if she responded in kind with an unusual intensity.

But, spotting the man abandoned by his fellow, his coughing spluttering audible even from this distance, Taalia felt another instinct seizing her actions. Ignoring Cestie's initial inquiry, the tall shepardess dashed forward. One might think she intended to finish the thief off, but instead, she hastened to his side where her hands went from Khorne-esque murder to the gentlest touch of mercy.

She tore the linen from her shirt to create impromptu bandages and set to work rescuing him from Mor's beckoning.

[MrAbdiel]

Maso trails after you, at an elderly dash; but you make your best haste to the fallen thief, still at the bottom of the building at the far end of the street. You tear a strip from your night shirt and start to bind his hand - the first and most obvious looking injury as you arrive - but you notice shortly that it's much worse. The pistol ball has connected at the base of the thumb and left it dangling by scraps of sinew, travelling laterally through the palm and shearing off middle and forefinger, probably back near the sack on the ground. That wound has bled rather restrainedly - but you see now it's because the initial impact, which punched a neat hole in the back of his arm, has come through the other side and reduced most of the bicep to a torn ruin. Importantly, the brachial artery somewhere within that mess has frantically tried to do its work, and in so has cost the lad far too much blood. Looking back the way you've run, you see the trail goes from pitter-patters near the streetlamp closest to the workshop, and grades swiftly to splashes and splatters.

You find no pulse. The thief (or would-be-thief) is dead.

He had quiet dark skin, suggesting some Arabyan or Southlander lineage in his recent ancestry; just under six feet tall, with short black hair and somewhat pretty eyes, now lightless and staring up at the building beside him where a few smudged, bloody handmarks map the escape of his attempted-savior to the rooftop. He was slight of build, perhaps a hundred and thirty points despite his height, and had patchy stubble on his chin. If he was eighteen, he was that only barely. The light of Cestié's lantern spills over him, as the old man catches up to you. He is quiet; and places a hand on your shoulder.

"...Did he.. try to hurt you?"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia exhaled and pursed her lips as the seriousness of the boys wounds became more and more apparent to her as she attempted in futility to rescue the boy from Mor's grasp. Alas, she could not. His fate was sealed the moment she had pulled the trigger and the lead ball had impacted with his body.

In an abstract way it was unusual to think about the intersectionality of fates, with her to continue and he to desist. She, Taalia, where-ever she was from, the Wastelands, the North-East of Bretonnia, Nordland or even, possibly, from Norsca itself, had slain a boy who was drawn up to Tilea from the lands of Araby or somewhere deeper into the world. That their fates would collide like this was surely to the amusement of some god for whom the lives of mortals were simply an entertainment.

But. He was still a thief.

What had he come around here to do?

Steal, obviously.

Had he left before that door had been opened? Had he chosen to labour in some lower-paying, but more honest profession? No. He had chosen to partake in the arts, rewards and, evidently, the risks of being a thief. He'd gambled with his life and he'd lost.

Besides, what would his actions have been had he and his coterie gained access to the house? They obviously knew, or at least believed, that it was filled with only the elders of the Cestie clan. Old men and women asleep in their beds - those were the victims this boy had agreed to target. He was no innocent. He knew what he was doing, why he was doing it and he had hoped to profit from it.

Standing up, the Taalia loomed over the boy not much younger than herself, as if she were a valkyrie out of mythology, and shook her head as she exhaled. Though disgust was visible in her eyes, there was an impression of lamentation on her features that showed she was not completely without pity. Were she some goddess of fate, she would have spared the boy the lead ball and allowed the terror of the situation to direct him to departing the gang and bettering himself. But alas, that's not what happened. The sum of this boys life, it seemed, was to serve as a warning to others of what not to be.

"Stupid boy..." she uttered sorrowfully.

[MrAbdiel]

It's another hour and some portion of another before a small patrol of night watchmen arrive in their canalboat; look over the scene; ask some questions. They seem almost disinterested - desensitised to the death, by its commonality. They take the lad's body with them when they go - perhaps to a shrine to Morr, perhaps to some more expedient deposit place for the self-destructed dregs of society. You clean your pistol, and wipe the blood from the sword - the first it has tasted, from the back of a fleeing scoundrel. Inside, you are drawn into quiet conference with Biagio and Maso Cestié, with the now informed Bella.

"They had keys, you said? To the locks on the front door? Oh, no... Augusto had no keys, but he was familiar with them and had the skills to cut a new set. Ah! This is terrible..." Biagio laments.
Maso shakes his head. "It can't be. The Weevers aren't this bold - robbing a store, in a district like this..? There's plenty of places to rob where the owners, quite frankly, can't afford pistols to defend themselves; and they'd back down rather than getting in a knife fight, six-to-one."
Biagio sighs. "They do operate in the district; but we've never had a problem with them before. Not directly, anyway. But now one of them is dead - not that I blame you, Taalia, for if anything had happened to one of the boys-..."
Maso agrees, but shakes his head with the gravity of his projection. "They might retaliate to prove a point; probably long after we've moved on. I used to know the leaders, but that was near forty years ago -... But still. Tomorrow, we'll have to find their nest and try to come to some... negotiated agreement. And maybe convince Augusto to come home."
Bella tenses. "What if they just attack us? You said they'd want retribution."
Maso shakes his head. "The Weevers are a thieves guild, not a gang of killers by nature. It's the Tilean pride that needs restitution; when I was with them, we knew well enough not to make too man enemies... especially those who can afford to hire their own head-kickers to root you out. Maybe someone there still has my chevios - ah... that is, my guild credits."

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia was still in her stoic mode when they all gathered inside the house. If she felt any remorse or guilt, only slivers of regret at the outcome were visible on her face, but her voice told her true story.

"Imagine if they had gained entry without any of us being alert. There was seven of them, all armed with knives and with empty sacks. They would have ruined your business, and Myrmidia knows what they would have done with the children, or Bella," she gestured to her friend with genuine concern and affection. Taalia knew the girl had an independent streak and was brave enough to try and fight the troll with them all. It wasn't her spirit she doubted. But even the most skilled man would struggle when faced with 7 knives while rising from his slumber.

"I regret that it had to end that way, but I'd do it again were I in the same situation once more," she stated.

Now that she thought about it...the mutants...the pirates...now the thief...she'd killed almost ten people since arriving on the surface. That was...a lot. Granted, they all had it coming. But still...despite how mostly idylic and peaceful life was here on the surface compared to where she had come from, most people went their lives without so much as claiming one.

Oh and one Skaven too, but that didn't count. Animals.

Now, however, came the politics of the situation. The Weevers were a gang of thieves...perhaps this would intimidate them off? At least for as long as Taalia remained in the area. Strong-armed leg-breaking didn't seem within the style of just thieves, unless they had significantly upped their game since last Maso had ran with their numbers. Still, Taalia was inclined to listen to the senior Cestie, nodding gently at his words.

"I'm coming with you, Sinogre," she stated, her sonorous and smoky voice soft in the gravity of the situation, moving a hand over to rest against and squeeze his own as a sign of support.

[MrAbdiel]

Cestié nods, and lays a hand over yours.

He was counting on it.

* * * * *

After a much quieter and more sombre breakfast than the dinner preceding, you cross the greater canal that separate the wealthier core of Miragliano from its middle class and poorer extremes. Your destination, Maso explains as Biagio pushes along the canalboat with a long oar, is the East District.

"Even when I was young, the East District was given over to the marsh. The islands it's built on - they're no good; it's all sunken into the mud, and drowned the lower floors of all the buildings there. The Weevers have bolt holes across the city like most of the gangs, but like most of the gangs, their main holdout is in the East District."

Biagio has two bribe a few separate sets of guards at separate canal gates to get you there. Strictly speaking, the East District is forbidden; but the locksmith has a good reputation and your group - two grey haired men and two young women - doesn't look like much trouble. Finally, as the boat crosses a final canal gate to where the East District begins, you see the change immediately. The building past this point are not maintained; here, the lower floors of those you can see are at least ankle-deep in water with higher tidemarks on the walls. Some buildings have such compromised foundation that they have given up and crumbled entirely, or slouched appallingly against their neighbouring structures. More frustratingly, the canals are not maintained - they are choked with debris and weeds, and as Biagio drives the boat into the midst of some of them, it slews to a whispery stop against the bulrushes.

Maso stands up, stretches his back out with a grumble, and then takes up a rope and hook, tossing it easilly to the window of a building nearby and giving it a firm tug.

Biagio doesn't particularly want to remain behind - Augusto is his son, after all - but he has neither your strapping frame, Maso's experience, or Bella's generally compensating youth. And someone needed to mind the boat, after all.

"Don't worry, Biagio. I've got my girls here; we'll all be back, no trouble."

At Cestié's direction, you climb up the knotted rope and into the second story of what might have been the home above someone's shop - now stripped bare of anything except some mildew-rotten planks that were some kind of shelf.

"Better to go window to window, if you can. Floors are made to hold up people; rooves are made to hold up rain. Much easier to fall through an old roof than an old floor. But if we do end up on rooftop, try to move on the steepled tops; and failing that, along the edges. That way, you have a joist under you at all times. Now keep your eyes out - there's worse than thieves, in the East District; but tell me if you spot any graffiti that looks like a fishbone."

Bella follows behind you and Cestié, with her bow drawn. If you had left her behind, the chance she would have followed you anyway was quiet high; but she watches your back as you advance, looking for signs and threats...

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

I'll take Perception (Visual), Perception (Aural), Search, Scale Sheer Surface, and Swim checks, at this point.

None of these are disaster-checks. This is just to set a standard for how easy it is for Taalia to travel and seek under these conditions!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Perhaps Taalia was imbibing the Tilean custom of affectionate-arguing, because she had spent half an hour before departure trying to convince Bella not to come. This would be incredibly dangerous, she stressed, they would be heading into the marsh-adjacent section of the city where the Skaven lurked about, she insisted, but it was to no avail. Bella was coming, whether she liked it or not, and Taalia, for all her other forces, had to resign herself to protecting three people.

And so that's what she geared up to do.

Much as with her trip to Remas, Taalia looked like some sort of bodyguard when she stepped out in preparation to depart and escort Maso Cestie. She wore her mail armor upon her figure, her steel helmet upon a head and her white-blonde hair done up in a bun underneath it so it could not be grabbed from behind. On both of her hips were her holstered pistols alongside a scabbard for Daybreak, over her back was her shield and in her hands was Leonardo, her trusty blunderbuss that had been her stalwart companion for so long. As they were heading into a literal thieves den, Taalia made sure not to carry any currency external to her clothes, instead shoving a small purse into her cleavage underneath her clothing and mail armor. If a thief could manage to extract that through two layers while evading her notice then that was impressive enough to think that he deserved the treasure within.

Naturally, she sheathed her dagger into her right good quality riding boot. Just in case.

Taalia wasn't messing around. She knew the potential danger they were entering, and it frustrated her to no end that Bella couldn't see reason. Those were the thoughts occupying the shepardess' mind as they moved along the river in the gentle gondola, a process that would have, were she on some type of date, been a surprisingly romantic affair. But not this time. The trepidation was palpable and there was no whimsical love to be found here.

As they entered the more closed off section of the city where well-kept architecture gave way to the buildings that time forgot, Taalia visibly tensed up and kept her eyes peeled on their surroundings. She had good sight and excellent hearing, and she would use both to the best of her ability to spot whatever danger may be lurking in the vine-gripped buildings. Frogs croaked, insects buzzed and the eternal choir of crickets and bugs filled the air as if they had ventured into some untouched swampland.

[MrAbdiel]

You follow your geriatric companion's surprisingly spry spelunking through windows and over rooftops. Your keen senses save your group from being startled a few times. Twice, you come upon other small groups in the ruined canals; but both times, after pausing to observe, your eyes pick out that they are no threat at all; each a duo of peasant salvagers, slinking carefully through buildings to pry up the unrotted boards and joists they can find to sell for lumber, and some of the rotted stuff for firewood. The second group has found a small treasure - a decently carved wooden chair that has survived the rot that claimed so much else. They are carefully lowering it from a window into their tiny, two-man barge which they must stash somewhere inside the weeds before transfering later to a boat on the other side, to sell their pickings in the city. You make eye contact with the one of them; a young woman who looks to be just on the right side of starvation. She observes your heavy armament, and offers a nervous smile when you signal no intention to take the precious chair; then they are on their way. She makes a little hang signal, before she goes; touches the side of her nose with her thumb, touches her eyebrow with her index finger; touches her pinched collection of fingertips to the crown of her head before fanning her fingers suddenly. When you relay it to Cestié, he decodes for you.

"It's thief sign. She said there have been no skaveni that she has seen, but she can't be sure."

And you're the first to spot the fish-skeleton sign Cestié mentioned - he interprets it as a directional sign based on the number of rib bones indicating whether to follow the point of the mouth, or the tail, or neither.

There's only one small, minor-disaster of a fall. As climb up another brick wall, you feel your muscles straining. You're a strong girl; but you haven't done a great deal of climbing in your life... and the last few years of labor on the farm have required much less punishment on your arms and legs than slave life did. As you feel your forearms quiver, having overestimated the how you might scale this particular wall, you recognize how taxing all the extra weight of weapons and armor you carry happens to be. Then you drop, gasping an instinctive breath before you hit the brackish water. It turns out to be not terribly deep - deep enough to break you fall, and so you can fail about and not go completely under. Your pistols have gone under the waterline - the powder in them is certainly wasted, and will need to be cleaned out. But you keep Leonardo above the water, and that's something.

Bella is there at the floor of the building you just left before the failed climb; and as Maso peers down at you with worry from atop your destination, Bella is there to grab your hand and steady you, ready to help you climb out of the water back to the merely damp floor where she kneels, and there to consider how to solve the problem of the climb.

It's there, up to you armpits in swamp water with your blunderbuss held over your head in one hand and your other hand gripped by your best friend trying to help you up, that you hear it: the creak of boards behind Bella by just a few paces. And then your eyes track to the sound, and resolve it: a shadowed, humanoid shape; grotesquely fat and straining the boards as it approaches the blissfully unaware maid of Bella Collina.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

These bastard walls! What foul deed did Taalia perform in a past life that saw her punished having to traverse these wretched obstacles? One would think with her impressive physical prowess that Taalia would take to the requirement easily, but climbing walls took a coordination and utilisation of alternative muscles requires to move her up that wall.

But, alas, it seemed she had no natural talent for it, much to her detriment.

"Bastard son of a bitch!" she hissed as she slid back into the brackish water below, her pistols submerged, ruining the powder. The shepardess had spare shots with her, but she'd have to shake them dry and reload them once she scrambled up into the room above.

But then she saw it. That menacing figure emerging behind sweet Bella who was helping her up.

"Bella, take it!" Taalia instantly responded, holding her blunderbuss up for her friend to take.

"Behind you!"

[MrAbdiel]

Bella's eyes flare wide at your panicked tone; and before she can think, she has snatched the blunderbuss from your hands, spun on the spot, and fired.

Spoiler: OOC: Rolls...

Show

StrangerAgilityVs26 - (1d100)[57]
or else take (1d10+3)[13] damage.

Description pending.

Your night eyes are better than anyone's; but even you can't see well in shadows with the day's sun high in the sky, demanding your eyes adjust to its power instead. But the muzzleflash on Leonardo lights up the scene for a split second, along with a great boom.

The creature is undoubtedly some kind of mutant. Bella's aim is good for a split second decision, if not quite perfect. just a little off a blast that would have torn a hole through its body or sheared off its head. As it its, a good scattering of the tiny lead pellets impact up the creature's left side; grievous wounds just shy if an immediately fatal wound.

In the flash, you see it. Or him, perhaps; a thing that, but for the assault of fate's dark vagaries, would have been a man. Dirty enough that you cannot tell the natural shade of his skin, somewhere between pale and dark tan; a messy tangle of black hair and big, frightened eyes. His body is fat, but his arms and legs are thin - the corpulence striking you immediately as an unnatural facet of his condition. More immediately inhuman is the protrusive nose, or rather, the trunk that sprouts from where his nose should be; fleshy, no longer than a hand, and recognizable to you only as reminiscent of the carvings of mammoths you saw in your time in Norsca. He is dressed in a ragged and tatty set of too-large trousers held up with a rope tied about his waist, and what might generously be described as a shirt, which is just sackcloth roughly stitched together into a sort of clumsy vest. In the instant the weapon flashes, he is reeling away; startled either by your shout or Bella's spin, but not fast enough to avoid the blast that rakes up his left side. Bella collapses backward onto her backside with the recoil, and the mutant tumbles and squirms back with the impact.

"Ahhhh! Forry! Forry, forry! Ahhh!"

It's a shout of pain more than viciousness; the kind you know well from the slave pits; the helpless squealing of the endlessly frightened. As you pull yourself up onto the second story floor beside Bella, you see the fat fellow crawling away toward the back of the building, where a rickety ladder made of scrap wood and cordage leads up to an attic space. As your eyes adjust, you hear the whimpering, grunting thumps of the mutant trying to get away, trying to stand, but finding his footing fails him.

"Forry, forry..."

There was a moment in Bella's face where the fear drained to elation; the thrill of firepower well spent from the hands. But that too drains away to dawning horror.

Cestié has clambered down the opposite wall and springs over to land beside you, bracing himself on the wall with one hand and fumbling for a dagger with his other. "What happened? Are you alright? What... is it?"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia's eyes widened as Bella took the weapon and whipped around in an instant to blast it at the figure slowly moving towards her.

"Wai - !" is all Taalia got out before the Boom! echoed within the room and the cry of pain from the newcomer joined the heavy sound of his collapse.

This is why Taalia hadn't wanted Bella to come. She didn't doubt her spirit nor her value in other area's, but they were heading to a dangerous area of town in search of the hiding den for a criminal orgnisation. That was no place for someone with no experience in violent matters. Those who had not experienced the sheer shock that violence and fear generated were not prepared for how it would seize their actions and control their thoughts when they beheld it first-hand. To hear or read about a man being stabbed was one thing, but to watch the fight happen in person and witness that blade enter a body, it was another thing entirely.

But, frightened as it had been, perhaps Bella's reaction had been the right one. This was a swamp-reclaimed, decrepit part of town filled with brigands, miscreants, thieves and the occasional Skaven: shooting first and asking questions later seemed like sensible policy, within context of course.

When Taalia managed to scramble up over the railing and plant her feet on the floor, her eyes took in the situation and quickly pieced together what she believed had occurred.

This man, this clear mutant, lived here. He had heard their entrance and had come to investigate. Did he have malicious intentions? Maybe, maybe not, they'll never know. Perhaps he saw Bella and thought she was a thief helping a friend up into this upper level of a stone house with the intent to rob him, and he was going to react accordingly. Whatever the case, now he was helpless and whining out 'Forry!', clearly his version of 'Sorry!' in a pity-evoking display.

Reacting quickly, Taalia dashed to the mutanst side. His deformities did not bother her - she'd grew up around worse in the slave pits. From her backpack she withdrew a white, coiled bandage and a healing draught, as she applied pressure and wrapped the treated linen about the wounded area to stifle the bleeding. The shot pellets of the blunderbuss were small, their power coming from their number dispersed across an area. If the mutant had a few locked in his leg, it should be fine, long-term, Taalia thought, they'll likely get covered in scar-tissue. At worst he'll have a limp. They had not struck anything vital, otherwise the blood loss would be considerably larger.

Holding the healing draught up for him to take, Taalia made a drinking motion, her voice now soft and gentle.

"Drink, Singore, it will make you feel better!"

[MrAbdiel]

"Forry..."

As you approach, your judgement seems to be correct. The mutant, though unclean and unsightly, seems to bear no weapons. He is covered in scars, cuts and bruises of hard living; some from the abuse of others it seems, though you note his knuckles are not calloused over, nor do his mutations include claws or teeth suitable for combat. He tucks himself into the corner of the room at the bottom of the ladder he is too frightened or in pain to climb, holding the wounded left arm to himself and the right hand up with its palm out in an apologetic gesture. Big, dark eyes flick to you occasionally in awful fear and the familiar anticipation of pain which you have seen in the eyes of dozens and dozens of miserable slaves. His refrain, Forry, he repeats like a warding mantra against that predicted punishment.

Cestié is wary as you and Bella turn immediately to pity; but he can't deny the compelling, odd innocence of the mutant fellow. Too hideous to dwell with humans; apparently, too dim-witted and gentle to be of any use to the various gangs, he has somehow scrounged out a life amoungst the refuse of the dilapidated East District of Miragliano.

"Oh! It's alright, it's alright. No, I'm sorry - you just.. frightened me!" Bella tries to explain. The slow calming fear in the mutants eyes seeps away with enough soothing from the pair of you, eventually enough that you are able to get close, take out the small kit of medical tools you have suitable for travel, and carefully unpick from his ravaged side some of the shrapnel you had carefully packed into your weapon earlier. It's a great mess of flesh wounds, and you end up bandaging up much of his skinny left leg and arm, and atleast cleaning the wounded on his oddly pudgy torso. After that, you convince him to take the draught; he cradles it carefully, sipping as directed until it is gone; relinquishing the vial back to you when you reach for it. It helps a great deal.

He doesn't seem to have much in the way of words. He understands Tilean as long as you speak slowly and clearly; but he himself tends to veer back to a few well learned phrases, or repetitions of simple ones he has constructed to convey something specific, without much capacity to rephrase or elaborate. You manage to extract from him that his name is Olio.

He must be in a great deal of pain, but after a while Olio just seems nervously pleased to have positive company even smiling a fair bit, wincingly. His fingertips worry at the air close to his chest when he is nervous; his trunk occasionally quirking up to snuffle at the air.

"Raphs 'teal me net..." He offers in what seems like an explanation, particularly to Bella. When that doesn't seem quite understood, he struggles to his feet again, and to the ladder. "Look, look... Look."

Up he goes, more slowly and carefully now; favoring the right leg, not using the left arm, but making it. Cestié tries to argue against the delay, but Bella insists on indulging him. She is clearly stricken with guilt, for the wound she inflicted.

You think briefly about "False Bertuccio"; the mutant whom Simonuccio and the Matrone suggested probably had his own face and name and life before one cursed Mystery Night where he was warped for the pleasure of an evil god into the likeness of the local lawman. At the time, Simonuccio's cold absolute assurance that mutants required death was an invitation to believe in easy if somewhat unpleasant answers to complicated problems like that. But then, Simonuccio's approach came into question not so long after... Considering what Bertuccio meant to Bella and how distressing the whole scenario was, she must have spent some nights dwelling on the hanged mutant in Bella Collina's village square - what he deserved; what he got.

When you and Bella follow Olio up into the attic, you find a narrow, cramped living space. A nest of rags must serve as his bed in one corner. The fireplace downstairs is of course waterlogged; but he has knocked a hole in the side of the chimney as it passes through the attic and plugged it with stone and mud, now baked hard from many nights of petty fires for cooking and warmth. A disorganized pile of woodscraps a crude tools lie in another corner; and in another lies a flattened mat of reeds upon which he has heaped a small mound of picked-clean fish skeletons from the swamp below.

And finally, the most precious corner to which he is look looking you, there is little wooden crate; and within that crate is an almost perfectly fine blanket; and curled up on that blanket is a lazy, lean looking, smoke-grey mother cat. Four mewing kittens, two grey, one white, one almost black, bumble around over and past each other trying to suckle.

Olio looks on the little feline treasury with paternal wonder, before wincing at a flare of pain from his bloodied side; and then offers a smile almost in apology for the wince to the pair of you.

"Raphs 'teal me net...", he offers again; brushing at the pile of cleaned fishbones with sadness in his odd features.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

A rush of relief moved through Taalia's heart as she understood she was able to patch up and tend to most of the damage done to 'Olio'. It seemed like a bit of a cruel twist of fate that a seemingly gentle outsider would receive such a wound, but it was perhaps merciful that she was apart of it so that she could relieve the pain and protect against infection. The draught and paultirce was used, as was the bandage. There were a few little pellets that she could not withdraw, but she believed they would heal over with scar-tissue. The more she 'worked' on him, the further she gained confidence in her initial estimation: he'll be fine and will heal soon on his own, and at worst he would have a slight limp.

"Raphs 'teal me net..."

What could he be meaning? Taalia wasn't sure. She figured out 'Sorry' easy enough, but this one needed more context.

When he took them up to his little attic living space, Taalia was almost immediately returned to the slave pits that had only been just 3 or so years ago. To her, then, a place like this would have been a palace. But today, it was seen as the fringe of civilized society and a place for the destitute. Yet the shepardess found a slight familiarity with it all, even the smell. Still...he seemed to have everything a simple, gentle being like him could want. Relative safety, a place to cook food and...companions.

Meow! Meow! Meow!

Taalia's face turned distinctly 'Aww!' as she peered into that little crate and upon those four little kittens and their placid, trim mother.

The shepardess brought her left hand up, but hesitated. She looked over at the mutant, her hand hovering above that little cat house in a gesture of patting, "May I?" she asked. If given permission, she would first gently pet the mother on her head, before dragging the back of her finger across the adorable little backs and tails of the miniature cats.

"Raphs 'teal me net..."

"The rats stole your net?" Taalia asked, eyes widened slightly in realisation. That's how he survived here: he fished. He was a self-sufficient mutant, gentle and simple minded, living out his days in an oddly beautiful, but dangerous place where he had created a safe little alcove where he had the companionship of the neighbourhood cats. But the Skaven had stolen his net. The fact he knew how to survive the Skaven, or at least was of no use to them, gained him a degree of protection.

It wasn't some grand life set for greatness, but given the mans conditions, it was about the happiest he could get. Maybe he had once been normal and had been stricken with this curse during the Mystery Night. Perhaps he had been born this way. But as far as Taalia could tell, he was keeping to himself, wasn't bringing harm to others and was even offering a comforting help to some local animals.

Taalia looked over at Bella and Cestie, remembering what Maso had quietly beckoned earlier: they had to get going.

Turning back to Olio, "We have to leave..." she gestured to herself and her two companions, speaking slowly so that Olio could understand.

"We are sorry for hurting you. If we see a net, we will get one for you."

It was the least they could do for shooting the poor bastard.

[MrAbdiel]

He seems reluctant to let you go, though it's hard to tell; perhaps because of the hostile realm beyond, perhaps because he so rarely has visitors. He tries to communicate something with his hands - it's a little hard with one arm being so recently stung - but he makes a little triangular steeple with his fingers. "Raphs 'teal me net..." he reminds you; a phrase that tonally seems also to concede and bid you farewell, and you leave the stricken but recovering mutant Olio to his cats.

A few more traversals of building to building and you spot again with your honed senses another of the thief signs. "Ah... We're close, then - we'll light a fire in the chimney here. There will be a bit of treated wood somewhere near it that will have little carved notches in the length; three notches is the one, and that'll burn smoke that'll look green to the right lens. Unless they've changed the signals... but we've got nought but to try." The reinvigorated Cestié is halfway to lowering a knotted rope for your trio to climb down into a window of the building beneath you and find that notched wood, but at that point you spot it - a building across weedy canal from you. Its top floor has collapsed and crushed most of the lower story, and the entire foundation has halfway surrended to the marsh. The end result is that the lower floor is underwater on the east side and above on the west - with a triangular half of a doorway visible at the waterline. You notice also what no one else would do - the faint scrapes where a clawed, ratty hand have grasped that doorframe going in and out over time. It may not be a skaveni that dwells here; any mutant could have such claws... but it might be. That would be a chance to recover Olio's net, which is one thing; and perhaps more compelling, a chance to kill a ratman. Or it might be an unnecessary danger and distraction - but is it worth leaving to the rear of you, when you go?

It looks cramped and dark in there... For most, that would be enough to deter.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

After the trio had departed the mutant, thankfully on better terms than when they met, Taalia had given Bella a warm, tight hug. She knew what the girl must be going through, though it was a sensation that had long since departed Taalia. The slave pits had desensitised and hardened the shepardess in ways poor Bella had not been required to copy, and Taalia hoped she never would.

When they continued to traverse through the half-sunken ruins of the east section of the city, Taalia narrowed her eyes when she spotted what could be a doorway into a little nest for the ratmen. Though the residue of possible Skaven access was evident, that was pretty flimsy evidence upon which to risk their lives and divert their action from.

Reaching out and tapping Cestie on the shoulder, Taalia brought the possibility to his attention. Silently she looked at him, a 'what do you want to do?' expression on her face.

[MrAbdiel]

Cestié looks on where you point and listens to your concern. He frowns. He had enough reason to hate the rats before you came into his life; and with you came more. The conversation with his father the night before has only added to it.

"We... can spare a moment to kill a rat - ... but perhaps we shouldn't. We can't afford to fight a whole... a whole swarm of them. You're good, Taalia, but..."

But a bit of bad luck could change a lot of outcomes, whatever he was going to say behind pursed lips. You, however, know it's vanishingly unlikely that there is a great many rats here. The skaven hate the surface. They are paranoid backstabbers and they feel afraid and exposed on the surface - much better in a nice hole in the ground where you can put your back to a wall and point your eyes facing out. If there are skaven dwelling up here long term, there cannot be many - perhaps an outcast or two, like Rashabang was destined to be for the short interim between his escape from the assassins and his capture by the humans of Verezzo.

Cestié thinks you can spare time for the diversion - the thieves guild isn't going anywhere in the next few minutes - but mostly it comes down to how confident you are wading armpit deep into a watery ruin which probably contains a hostile little rat monster.

Is your desire for safety stronger than your hate for the creatures?

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia despised the ratmen, but she didn't possess an all-consuming frenzy just waiting for its moment to seize control over her actions. She had Bella with her and Cestie, both relying on her vigour if any trouble came their way. Going and looking for trouble? In arm-pit high water? Were it not sunken...maybe, but in its current state, she was going out of her way to enter a dangerous situation at a severe physical advantage and for potentially no gain.

"We'll tell the thieves. Maybe they'll do something about it, if they don't want some outcast Skaven on their doorstep," she uttered to Cestie, gesturing that they should head on.