Spire: A Grave Mistake

[Eldan]

Chapter 1: A Grave Mistake

If a barren mountain peak was also a city, it would be New Heaven. Outside of Derelictus and further below, perhaps the most hostile of all the districts of the Spire, with its bleached towers and pyramids, incessant howling winds, icy cold and thin air. Some of the inhabitants have done their best, mounting vast spans of sky-colored cloth between buildings and on poles, to keep out the hostile sun, while others emerge only at night, or go about in dark glasses, veiled, masked and hooded. They have brought color back to the bone-pale buildings with strings of prayer flags that snap and tatter in the wind, with feathered idols to gods of rain and storm and open sky, with murals of prophets and psychopomps, but it is still a place of the dead. It is the home of whispering ravens and silently circling vultures, of cackling hyenas and of bones lying open to the sky, just as much as any drow who lives between them.
But it has something that most would agree makes up for the harsh climate and the mute neighbors: the view. The top of Spire breaks through all but the highest clouds, so that New Heaven sits under a deep blue dome, unmarred but for a few feathery whisps. Pilgrims come here, from deep in the Works and Gardens, where some have never seen the sky, to gaze upon the sun and moon and lay out the bones of their deceased in their divine sight. It is hundreds of feet down the sheer walls to the docks, where the ponderous skywhales drift on the currents, the encrustation that is the Perch, and from there, miles down to the sprawling suburbs, the winding river, and all the green and brown patchwork of the fields and forests of Destera, already lost in hazy blue distance.
There is another advantage, one that especially the ministry has come to appreciate: it is quiet. Between the somber atmosphere, the bleached corpses and the sun that burns far too bright for any drow not on important business, no one is ever just hanging around here during the day.
It has been almost two weeks since your Magister - Eldaine, is the name he told you to call him by - has contacted you, but finally, you have found notes in your usual dead drops, informing you to come to the usual location just before dawn. It is a shrine to some forgotten sky god, with three sturdy walls and an open roof, dominated by a crumbling statue with three arms and no head. It hangs half over the Abyss outside, and you’d do your best to watch your step.
The magister is already here, when you arrive. In fact, you have never seen him come or go from a meeting, he is always already here. His skin is ashen grey, his hair pearl-white and together with the dark glasses that hide his eyes, it is impossible to estimate his age. His suit, too, is indeterminate: a faded burgundy, just slightly scuffed at the elbows and the cuffs and rumpled, so that he might be a well-to-do drow fallen on hard times, or an absent-minded bureaucrat or academic, or perhaps a worker on his way to a date or a job interview in his father’s best suit. He is kneeling in front of the shrine's little altar, where he has set up a bowl of water, and a garland of flowers. Almost certainly a cover, if anyone should see him here.
He nods, silently, as his cell enters.

[n0ble]

The Carrion-Priest

Kurza licked their lips, then probed a bit deeper mid-stride to the part in their teeth. They tugged a bit of gristle loose-salted bird meat-swallowed it, then loosed an involuntary shake of their head which caused the cowl of made from Goremaw's hide to shiver and shake all the more in the wind. The carrion-priest squinted down a too many times broken nose, through the eye-holes of the hyena-hide cowl and kept loping towards where their dead drop-a privy overhaning a large drop down-Spire-had conducted them to. Little bone piercings threaded through the hide's limbs rattled as the wind took up the more flailsome parts of the garment. Sometimes the paws clapped, applauding the holy tools worn at the priest's belt: a chain and hook coiled like a Nujabi viper and, near to the priest's dominant hand, and overlarge cleaver. The kind made for splitting bone, the end of the weapon-handle pommelled with a series of gradually enlarging finger tarsal bones styled like a maw. One to reflect the yawn Kurza had sewn into the hyena pelt and daubed in blood on the leather haubrek they wore underneath the black of their robes.

Lee Lee loped in parallel with Kurza, easily the height of the priest's waist. A mane of black hair spiked upwards across the shebeast's back, flaring high at the shoulders before steadily trailing downwards to a small fuzz at the hyena's rump. Her fur was an apricot-tan with black spots, lending the holy animal a bloodstained look in fading sunlight. Her mouth was half a forearm wide and filled with a modest knife block's worth of teeth. A small ring pierced of the hyena's ears, from which dangled another, smaller brass ring through which several corvid feathers hung. Kurza had painted several dozen holy symbols across Lee-Lee's pelt, all in stark whites: an overlarge mouth draw over Lee Lee's own maw, a crow feather on her left hip and a series of teeth traced along her right flank between the spots. She loosed a little growl of acknowledgement as the pair entered into the meeting place at a leisurely pace, moreso directed at the statue than the minister at it's base.

Kurza clicked their tongue against the palate of their mouth and let the loosed sound fill the three walls. Lee Lee chuffed at nothing then raised a sour look at Kurza. The Faithful of Charnel returned the look with a smile, though this was hidden by how the hide of Goremaw included the bits from around its mouth. Their tongue picked at another piece of gristle-tendon this time-and swallowed it. Lee Lee whoofed and then set to padding back and forth across the entrance of the meeting space, pausing at the end of each side of the wall to look at Kurza before resuming the patrol in the opposite direction. The Carrion Priest went forward towards the statue at a languid pace. It gave them plenty of time to grumble at the open roof. Even after all the years above-above at the top and the sky still felt heavy. Still felt oppressive. It also gave them plenty of space to look at the the minister on the floor. His suit reminded Kurza of a little prayer-hymn he'd known as a child, and it was this tune Kurza hummed as they came to a stop in front of the man. Kurza blinked slowly, resting a spindly hand on the pommel of their cleaver while hitching a hand to a loop of chain attached to their prey hook. Underneath the overlarge hide of the cowl, the Carrion Priest stopped their song to lick their lips, repeating the same mannerism again over a set of pink teeth.

Spoiler: OOC

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Happy to be a part of the game! If player colors for speech and/or thought are needed may I please take fire brick ?

Commanding Lee Lee to Guard from the Hyena command list.

[Lacco]

The faint smell of old parchment permeated the hall.

Kaervac passed shelf after a shelf, moving through the columns of scrolls without even blinking at them, even though his usual approach to written material was to immediately get lost in it. He had a strange feeling that today would be the day.

It was there.

A message. Between two scrolls, a piece of stone bound in a fabric. It did not belong. Kaervac examined the fabric. It was originally of a deep colour that faded. That meant New Heaven. He then examined the three pieces of string that bound it, but it seemed just like three strands of the same string. The stone though was weathered, and bore a symbol on it. He knew the symbol. The shrine. The shrine in New Heaven.

Now it was just a question of when.

Three strings. Of course, he thought. The message was clear. He felt exhilaration and a bit of panic. He has been a sleeper for too long - and now he was called to perform. He was looking forward to putting his skills to use: after all, his mentor chose him for a reason. He hoped.

Moving three dozen steps exactly to the columbarium that contained the scrolls he was seeking, he pulled out the one that looked slightly bleached. The one on clothes. He began his study. There was no time. And he needed to catch up on the one he borrowed last week: the one with story about the aelfir that pretended to be feeble-minded.

...

That was three days ago. Kaervac stepped out of the shaft, and into the light. Regardless of his preparations, it was blinding for him - he spent too much time in the dark prison and even more time learning his ways across the Vaults.

He quickly pulled his hand-made turban a bit lower, obscuring his features more. He hid his pale grey skin as much as possible, but was not able to find anything for his eyes. He wore robes made out of several layers of cloaks above his vest, fashioned only to hide his skin and prevent any contact with the sun. He liked sun. He liked the images on the parchments. He did not like the sun that threatened to burn him.

His steps echoed on the empty platform, as he walked quickly towards nearest shade. He planned this route - he knew the area in general, but he also knew where to find a map of this specific part and planned his steps to remain in shade whenever possible.

There. He exhaled and only then noticed he was holding his breath. Nerves. Only in the last moment he noticed the figure before the statue and the one that was moving closer - he was suffering from a tunnel vision. He yearned for the calm, cool and echoing chambers of the Vaults.

But he had a job to do.

He entered the shrine and bowed slightly. He tapped his fingers on his side, just to be sure he did not forget his dagger, and then noticed his own behaviour. Startled a bit, he produced a slight feigned cough.

Spoiler: OOC

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I second the sentiment - I am also happy to be in.

Also, you both did a wonderful job of setting the bar so high with the first posts.

[Captain Cap]

Another figure shows up, unhurried but punctual.
Leather protections and ordinary clothes elegantly worn cover a slender and athletic frame. A keen eye may discern the presence of a hidden weapon, at her side to be readily drawn should the need arise. If it isn't distracted by the glimpse of her looks under the hood: her skin is smooth silver, the only flaw a scar on her left cheek that gives a rougher accent to those exquisite lineaments, her hair is white silk, her eyes golden jewels behind a pair of dark glasses that barely smother their intensity.

Diana stops at the entrance for just a moment, the time to identify those present, then she moves, unbothered by the feeble light of a sun that has yet to rise, no match for the scorching rays that beat down upon the southern mountains during day, unperturbed by the altitude of the location, of little concern for the sure-footed. The grace of her step, worthy of an aelfir, is anchored to the ground by the firmness of a soldier.
A subtle smile betrays a hint of excitement: will she be asked to dispense sweet retribution, to bring ruin to the deserving? Eldaine will tell her; having higher-ups to answer to is one of the downsides of being a minister, but she hasn't been let down so far.

She finally sits on a front bench close to the altar, laying her backpack beside her and crossing her legs as she waits. Not much reverence for the deity the shrine is dedicated to, from someone whose faith is reserved to quite other gods. Indeed, a passer-by would get the impression she was there to enjoy the ambience rather than pray.

[Eldan]

Eldaine nods, silently, as everyone has arrived. From somewhere in his suit, he pulls a small pouch, takes out a pinch of powder. Different shades of grey and white, some coarse, some fine. Salt and ash. A pinch each is thrown in the four compass directions, one above, one below.

“Through her vigilance the world is unveiled
Through her tenacity we endure our burdens
Through her fury we act without fear
Through her grace our enemies’ eyes are clouded
Through her sagacity we become greater
Through her community we are made whole.

In the name of Our Hidden Mistress.”

These are, as ever, the only words he will speak before the circle is closed. Even here, one can not be too careful. He pauses a second, eyes half-closed, feeling for the small inaudible thrum in the air as the circle takes hold, then goes straight to business.

“Alright. You have all met before, so we can hold the introductions. There is a mission for you. It should not be especially dangerous, nor especially high-profile, but it is delicate. My superiors think you well-suited for it. Don’t worry, there is still potential for rather spectacular failure. A magnificent social scandal. Arrest. Blasphemy. Violence. All of it.”
With a wry smile, he puts a small locket on the table, flicks it open. Inside is a painted portrait, a young, dark-skinned drow, with a starched white collar, the edge of a black suit and a pale tie just visible. He is quite obviously well-to-do.
“Meet Dardinere Vane. He recently died. Very tragic. The problem is this: his parents disagree on how to proceed from there. In fact, their disagreement is considerable, as they happen to follow different religions. His father, Mardoc Vane, is a traditionalist and wants his son to be buried in the Mehrorian way, in the Vane family crypt in the Necropolis. Has already arranged a funeral, a parade and a sarcophagus, in fact. His mother, Dieumene, is… unconventional. She insists, in fact, that her son be sky-buried by Charnelites, which was also his own wish. Sadly, she happened to be out of town when her son died, so she’s losing that argument.
Luckily for her and us, she has friends who are even more unconventional than her. And those friends have contacts to the Hidden Ministry.”
He snaps the locket shut with a little click, moves to put it in his pocket, then seemingly thinks again and, with a fast swing of his arms, throws it through the missing shrine roof and into the reddening dawn sky outside where, presumably, a few miles of open air and then the river await it.
“Anyway. What you are going to do is steal his body. Some friends have already rearranged some paperwork, so the former Vane is currently not in the grand Temple of Mehror, which was unexpectedly busy, but in a small morgue at the eastern edge of the Necropolis, contact infrmation here” - he puts a small envelope on the rock of the shrine - “so you will not, in fact, have to fight your way through a dozen Mortician-Executioners. You will then bring the body back up here to New Heaven, preferably without being found out. Then, you will hand it over to the care of Brother Athos, whose contact information is here” - another envelope - “who has already prepared a tower and some friendly scavengers for dear Dardinere.
I have taken the liberty of purchasing you some tickets on the express elevator down to the Necropolis” - another envelope, this one larger and heavier - “but you will have to find your own transportation back, as well as a way to move the body without getting too much attention, especially as you leave the Necropolis. And you have to do it in less than 30 hours, before the funerary parade finds out where he was taken and comes to pick him up.
Achieve this quietly and gracefully, and you will gain the ministry some very valuable contacts in Ivory Row who will owe us favours, you will have embarrassed old Mardoc and soured his relationship to the Morticians, and you will have tilted the city’s second or third most exciting religious war ever so slightly in the direction of our dear Charnel.
Any questions? ”


Those who have the High Society Domain know:

Spoiler

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The Vanes are not fabulously rich, but quite well-to-do, in that quiet old money way that those Ivory Row drow families who managed to survive the transition to the Aelfir regime tend to be. The family owns several farming villages in the deep garden district and a very lucrative locust hatchery, though
Both mother and son are - or were - as Eldaine has said, unconventional in ways that both frustrate the conservative Mardoc and delighted fashionable society. Shockingly foreign religions, extended trips to the lower city and, if rumours are to be believed, a long and exciting love-affair with his low-born bodyguard Jazra, a drow of shockingly low birth who follows young master Vane simply everywhere.

Those who have the Occult Domain know:

Spoiler

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Dardinere Vane has made quite a name for himself in certain circles. Two or three years ago, he graduated from fashionably outré religion and avant-garde art to an interest in the occult and especially an unhealthy fascination with the Heart, that festering tear of unhealthy dimensional energies deep under Spire. Rumours say that he organized some kind of expedition that may have reached as least as deep as Sump and perhaps even further into the unsettled depths. This may very well be how he died, though one wonders how his corpse came back up to the city.

Those who have the Order or Crime Domain know:

Spoiler

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Grave-robbing is of course thoroughly illegal, though one may conceivably get away with a medium-sized bribe, if there was a believable reason for it - supplying an anatomist or an aelfir body artist, perhaps - and the corpse was no one important. Being found with the corpse of someone known, influential and noble, while in the presence of a hyena would be different. Combined this with stealing said body from the morticians Morticians and the result would most likely be a very brief meeting with Mehror's executioners.

[Lacco]

Kaervac nodded towards the other cell members. He knew their names, but this was supposed to be their first mission together.

Kaervac nods, trying to remember every word. As soon as the express elevator was mentioned, his eyes lit up: he always wanted to have a ride in one of those, as opposed to watching the elevator mechanism from the other side of the wall.

As the question was posed, he thought for a moment and then asked - mainly just thinking aloud. "So, grab the body from Necropolis morgue, pass it to the utmost level, to Brother Athos. Is the morgue aware of us picking the body? Or are we going to have to come up with a plan to grab it?"

His mind was already racing with thoughts about elevators and stairwells. Stairs would be hell with the body. But each of them could help. They could go through the outside, courtesy of having the Bound in team, they have a member of the Charnel and could - maybe - bluff their way up. They could drag the body through Vermissian, in the worst case.

[Captain Cap]

A frowning Diana makes little effort to hide her disappointment: someone already dead, faith contentions, creepy Morticians and their gloomy Necropolis, none of that is her forte, and for what? "A sneaky funeral service, is that it?"
But it's not like she can pull out and go do her own thing, for she's a minister and has higher-ups to answer to. At least she can take solace from the fact that, if it goes well, they'll have put one over on those uppity Morticians and some entitled traditionalist, and of course, served Our Hidden Mistress.
"Oh well, I'll make do," she improvises a smile. "Say, I'm not much used to these religious rites, in what conditions does the body need to arrive? Integrity, clothes, and whatnot."

[n0ble]

Kurza ran an anticipatory tongue across the uneven patchwork that passed for their teeth, tracking slowly with it as the minister talked. And talked. And talked. Kurza lost track for a while after the dead man was mentioned before their attention snapped back to the minister at mentions of the Necropolis. So many familiar scents filling the room made for a heady admixture, and it had been a while since the Carrion Priest had properly satiated their hunger with a baptism in Red Mary's name. This present calling would do. Their stomach rumbled, and Lee Lee gave a little affirmatory woof mid plod across the entrance before resuming her guard duty with a shake of her neck.

The Carrion Priest nodded along with all of Diana's questions, the hood of Goremaw's pelt-helm lagging behind in the nodding at the notion of corpse integrity. The whole affair made for a strange jumble of shadow on the wall-one belonging to a hyena thing moreso than a drow. Another stomach rumble, this one deeper and matched with a small growl from Lee Lee. It had been a while since they'd had a proper meal. They thumbed the top of cleaver's pommel while the opposite hand found a few of the bone-barbs that had been bored through their thickmost sections and slotted through ringlets of the prey-hook's chain. The Carrion priest smiled within the cowl of their hyena pelt. Their hand left the pommel of the cleaver to pick at one of their teeth-one that cut crossways and at odds with the others for how the gums had once been punch-split and not all set proper. Kurza did not mind. Eating had set the rest straight.

[Eldan]

Eldaine smiles, doing a bad job of keeping the slight edge of condescension out of his voice.
"Yes. That is, indeed, it. Just graverobbing, desecration, smuggling, theft. No glorious assassination of devious Aelfir nobility, no daring fight against the Paladins across the rooftops. Glory is Limyé's. Fury is Lekolé's. We are the Hidden Ministry, not the Crimson Vigil, ours is a slower, subtler revolution. We find the cracks in their power, slide in our wedges and then pry and pry and pry. And when the end comes, we won't even need to slip in the knife anymore.
You want to get at the Aelfir? Work your way in. We start with Maji-Vane, old money, sympathetic, friendly. And with her, we get her contacts, her friends, her family, her money, her name and her status. We take it all for the Mistress, and use it as a step up. And from there, another step, and another all the way to Amaranth."
He turns to the statue, fussily rearranges the flowers on the altar.
As for your questions, no. The undertakers don't know that you are coming, or what for. It's a small outfit, though. There should not be more than two people there, three at the worst. A receptionist, possibly an undertaker preparing bodies. No guards, as far as anyone knows. Distract them. Take them out, if you really have to.
And the body... it's going to be eaten by Hyenas. I don't think it matters too much what state it's in, though I'm sure neither Athos nor the deceased's mother would be too happy if he arrived without a head. Nakedness is normal, maybe even some dismemberment, I'm sure dear Kurza knows that better than me."
He turns back to the door, pulls a slightly battered floppy hat out of an inner pocket of his suit and unfolds it, then wraps a shawl across his lower face, before preparing to step out into the dawn.
"If there are no further question, I will take my leave. In the Hidden Mistress' name."

[Lacco]

"We seek not seek glory, nor we try to satisfy our fury by just killing. We serve the purpose." Kaervac looked around, trying to catch eyes of each of his companions. "I don't think we have more questions."

As the magister spoke his last words, Kaervac responded. "May her Grace accompany your steps."

Turning to his companions, Kaervac whispered fast. "Time is running. I have few ideas that might help, but I think we may have to move to the necropolis, grab the body and then see which way we pick." He looks behind his shoulder. "I may have a way how to slip past few guards, but I will need to grab a map or two. We need a way to carry the body, and we have a Carrion Priest with us: that gives us a good excuse, and our Masked companion may act as if that is a request of his master, but we will need to move fast. A wheelbarrow, a carriage, an elevator - we need anything that can move us with the body. Each of you - get something that will help and we can meet at the express elevator within an hour."

His smile turns crooked. "And maybe, just maybe... we should think about a diversion. Take more bodies, send them elsewhere. Spread attention. Maybe. What do you think?"

[Captain Cap]

Diana has to muster all her inner strength not to roll her eyes at Eldaine's tirade, instead she maintains the hint of a smile. Not that she disagrees, the Crimson Vigil is a little too fanatical for her taste, and to fly low is really the safest way to reach high up. Besides, she can always deliver justice in her free time.
All in all, she's content that their good Magister has at least bothered to answer their questions, but she isn't as formal as the more deferential Kaervac in bidding him farewell, offering only a somewhat playful "Bye."

Now it's time to plan. And it looks like someone is more eager than the others, in fact, after listening to the Vermissian sage's many ideas, she comments, "Hey, slow down, Kae, let's not get ahead of ourselves, we haven't even decided how we'll grab the corpse, or how we'll take it out of the Necropolis, that one place where Kurza and their hyena don't give us a good excuse."

"I agree that a transport would be handy, perhaps a coffin too, and another body, yes, preferably together with... legal papers? How many poor devils die each day in Red Row or Derelictus without anyone caring? We and our trusted Carrion-Priest may volunteer to take one up to New Heaven, and who could blame a band of improvised undertakers to use a big catacomb as a shortcut?
"Retrieving Dardi will be the tricky part, though a couple guys should be easy to distract, and I'm sure we can find around there a quiet place to swap the bodies, unloading our dear no-name, bless their soul, to make room for a once noble drow now all untidy in his new ragged clothes."

"It's just an idea," she shrugs. "In any case, I'd rather not stir up a hornets' nest with too much diversion; better not to have attention to divert in the first place."

[Lacco]

Kaervac listens intently. "Oh, I'm not talking about papers for Red Row. But if we happen to need to take a shortcut through one of the fancier parts, like Amaranth, I'd love to have some paper for protection." He waves it off. "Never mind, that was just an idea."

"Regardless, my plan is to get us some maps to find potential shortcuts." ...and to leave a message for my navigator friend, asking her for some help with navigating the Vermissian, should it become so dire... "The additional body is a good idea, and could work as the diversion." He thinks. "And having some vehicle will definitely be appreciated. I will keep my plans for a diversion in my mind, but as you say, it's safer if we manage it without any scandal."

He shades his eyes and tries to look at the sky. "I do not think we can idle, as we have a task to do and a schedule. Let's meet at the elevator - I need to run to get the maps, and neither of you should go with me where I'm going. Try to get the papers - ideally with the father's forged name - or a vehicle for us, if nothing else. If I do not make it to the elevator within an hour..."

...he seems distant for a moment...

"...wait a bit longer."

With that, he steps out of the shrine, his cloak billowing dramatically. And then the wind changes, and the cloak hits his face. He jumps through the shadowy parts, avoiding sunlight, and quickly reaching a wall.

He walks around the wall with his fingers tracing the brickwork, stopping at certain point. Kaervac smiles, looks around. Seeing nobody but his companions in distance, he knocks three times at the spot - the third knock suddenly sounds more hollow and metallic, and he quickly turns a knob that extrudes from the wall. The door swings open and a blast of hot wind - hotter than the outside - billows his cloak once again.

With that, he disappears inside.

[Eldan]

Kaervac - Loft Line, the Vermissian

Though the wall is a fairly small building, the tunnel behind it is three or four times higher, and stretches into shadowy distance on both sides. Pipes, some almost rusted through and dripping, some golden-bronze and almost new-looking, are packed along the walls and ceiling and steam coils over the grate flooring. Not the passenger parts of the Loft Line, then. A service tunnel.
It's better that way, really. For all their faded glory, the platforms and main tunnels of the Loft Line are far too heavily frequented and defended, as it reaches down into Amaranth and, some say, into the Council Chambers itself. Special units of Black Guard are said to have outposts here, watching for assassins and smugglers. Some say even Paladins. And of course, the shadowy war between the Charnelites and the Mehrorians is waged here too, by wild murders of tunnel crows, track hyenas, sigil traps and bone constructs. No, better to stick to the service tunnels. They may be sweltering hot, but they are mostly empty. And, Kaervac notices with satisfaction, his colleges from the Vermissian collective have been here before: small runes, pointers and glyphs in white chalk along the door frame give a quick overview of any recent sightings of dangerous fauna and the quickest route to the nearest drop point.
They are quite clear, too: don't touch anything blue. When the pipes whistle, do not whistle back. Black pipes are scalding hot. Remember the waxmen. Go left on harvest moons.

[Lacco]

Kaervac - Loft Line, the Vermissian

Kaervac does not smile, but much of his clumsiness is gone: here, he is at home. Not in the line or outside, but the service tunnels, back rooms - they smell like home. Or like ammonia and burned oil, in this corridor's case.

He walks easily, not disturbing the peace here too much as his footsteps do not echo for some reason. Only the small wisps of dust or smoke that curl around his ankles are disturbed, but he pays no attention - he is trying to trace the navigation glyphs for the nearest repository of maps and plans. He stops, standing without any movement or even breathing.

Five steps, pause, three steps, long pause... and he walks again, without any care in the world. Ignoring the whistling is always the worst part - it's like trying to hold back a sneeze. He hopes he won't have to do it.

All right, there it is. He finds a glyph that tells him that the repository is near. Just two or three levels down, in a broken elevator. Ideal? Maybe.

He walks on, trying to find stairwell. NOT whistling.

[n0ble]

Kurza watched with a flat affect as the Vermissian Sage disappeared from the bounds of conventional drow senses. The only give to their facial features was a slight twitch under the flayed skin they wore, a twinge of the nose to sniff at the hot air that had entered what they could perceive. Lee Lee stopped in her patrolling to snuffle in kind, pausing to turn her head up tot he Carrion Priest in a quizzical expression and a confused scatter of laughs. Kurza grunted, nodded the snout of their hide up in the same dysychronus motion as before, loosed a blunt click of their tongue and the hyena resumed the back and forth.

Much had been said about plans this and what to do that. Kurza had only really listened when the providence of the dead had been risen as a topic. Small morsels amidst the big plan, but perhaps enough to satiate. The same prayer-hum they had been tunelessly putting into the meeting space returned to the lips, steady and pausing only when the Carrion Priest finally started talking. He turned to the bound first, eyes widening with hunger as the various scents of the small gods on her person became tastes at the back of Kurza's throat. Born upon Charnelite winds like a gift only for the Priests consumption. Kurza banished the yearning with another lick of their lips, further interupting their song. The Faithful's voice was a wet croak, making it hard to affirm their gender. "Aye. Kurza knows where the bodies are. Lee Lee. Come." They nodded, first to the others then beyond them to the hyena. "We descend."

It had been a long time since Priest or holy animal had eaten of Derelictus.

[Captain Cap]

Diana follows Kaervac with a placid look as he leaves, far from sharing his apprehension: the dawn is still unripe, and thirty hours should be more than enough for the job. One, on the other hand, might be too scant for sensible preparations, "It'll probably be you who's gonna wait, Kae."
She turns back to Kurza, seemingly not minding their hungry gaze. "Sure, let's go," she welcomes their proposition. Then, after pondering a little, "But perhaps we should first ask your Charnelites friends for the means to carry those bodies." Meanwhile she's already thinking about how some low-life from the bottom districts could soon be contributing to a right cause, even just as a forsaken corpse.

[Eldan]

Kaervac in the Vermissian

The grand Forbidden Stacks or the Glass Library are not easy to reach in a short timeframe, but the Collective has taken other measures, and basic information, of the kind that is needed day to day, is hidden in dozens of hidden caches throughout the city. Not that traversing the Vermissian is ever easy, even this far up and far from the Heart. There is a frighteningly long ladder-climb in total darkness, in a shaft barely shoulder-width. There is a tense moment where Kaervac has to cross an old platform, where the gilded frames of lavishly scrolled benches have been pushed into a heap, surrounded by what looks suspiciously like a ritual circle scrawled into the dust. But whatever trap or summoning this was, it is inert. A fallen brick on the other side of the rusted tracks reveals a key, which opens a floor hatch, into another maintenance tunnel, this one with the brick on one side crumbling away and the wind howling in at a deafening volume from whatever void lies outside.
So it goes, through tunnels lit by flickering gaslight, or by eerily glowing moss, or in absolute darkness, until another glyph of the collective, barely deeper than other scratches on the wall, reveals the presence of a Vermissian stockpile. A wall panel slides aside as a series of knocks disarms the wards on its backside. The room behind it is… surprisingly comfy. Someone has taken the effort of lugging admittedly threadbare armchair through the tunnels and wedged it between the shelves with barely enough room left over for one’s knees. A storm lantern hangs from the ceiling on a length of fine chain and someone has nailed a crude map of nearby tunnels to the wall, though admittedly one filled with lots of question marks, tracks and maintenance tunnels just petering out as they reach the edge and about a dozen skulls and crossbones. The shelves are the real treasure: two dozen slim, cloth-bound volumes, the notes, maps and formulas of previous Sages. There is no index, but a few minutes of searching reveal just what Kaervec is looking for: three dozen pages of rough parchment, each a map sketch and some scribbled notes, describing a hideout or a shortcut somewhere in the middle districts of the city.

Kurza and Diana in Red Row

For all its poverty and rampant, violent crime, Red Row holds a nostalgia for most Drow, even those who have lived all their lives in the upper reaches of the Spire. But there is just something that speaks to the souls of many about walking in the wine-dark halflight of the sacred hearthfires flickering from behind narrow windows, the knowledge that though the vaulted ceiling is hundreds of feet overhead, what lies beyond is not the open sky, or even the slate mountains and fields of Destera, but dark, cool soil. Comforting smells hang heavy here: cauldrons bubbling with dark-grown drow foods, still cheaper than the lighthungry human fare that is flooding the markets: caveshrimp and vat-algae, mushrooms and blindworm, in thick and spicy stews and soups. Even the thugs lounging against alley walls or drinking malak-tea huddled around the guttering candles of café tables carry themselves with a swagger that would be unthinkable in the middle city or anywhere beyond, where an Aelfir or even guard would see, blatantly unmasked and toting cudgels and swords and even the odd rough pump-gun or dueling pistol, the insignia of the Katel Fanmi, their gangs, proudly displayed.
Still, even here, a hyena at one’s heels and a pair of heavy weapons are enough to disencourage too much attention, as long as one stays in the right streets. Kurza and Diana take turns pulling the two-wheeled wooden cart the Broken Teeth have handed them, on which some rough linen shrouds have already laid to cover the bodies once they are purchased.
Finding a body proves surprisingly easy, once inquiries are made and some small bribes are paid. There are information brokers everywhere once one knows where to look, in tavern backrooms where human mercenaries fill the air with the cloying smoke of their herbs, in shops which are suspiciously empty of customers ever buying any of the wares, under back-alley idols of wood and cloth, dedicated to the Many lost gods of Drowned Ys, Saint Trespass or Orro the Trickster. In the end, the cell has the luxury of not just finding a body, but finding the right body: one so fresh as not to smell, dead of no circumstances so suspicious that a guard would ask too many questions. In the end, the cell is guided to the grieving family of an old woman dead of natural causes. The incense is still lit for her wake, and her three daughters and two sons seem all too happy to hand her over to a carrion priest for free, instead of having to pay a mortician or taking her to serve as a fungus farm. The body is ashen-skinned and gaunt,
Then, there is simply the hard work of shoving and pulling a cart with a body up half a mile of ramps and through narrow alleys, to reach the Necropolis.

The Necropolis
Spire’s central cavern, a place for the dead older than living memory, is enormous. Above and below, it vanishes into the gloom, only illuminated by silently flickering ghostlights and torches. Other than the black-and-white robed mortician brethren, the followers of Mehror-of-the-snuffed-candles, God of silence and endings, few come here anymore, as almost none among the drow can afford earth burial or the hall of ancestors anymore, and the Aelfir prefer to die by fire, or not at all. The air is both cloyingly heavy and uncomfortably chill, thick with unseen ghosts. Honeycombed into the walls are the shafts of spiral staircases, the entrances to mausoleums, graveyards and mortuaries, and the temples and libraries of the Morticians. Weapons are not often seen here, other than the judgment swords of the Mortician Executioners, and hyenas and charnelites will get unwelcome attention sooner rather than later. Best if the cell is upon their business quickly and then departs.
Planchette & Tremblay, the Mortuary in question, is identified by nothing more than a brass plaque, three handspans wide and two tall, with the somber text “Planchette & Tremblay Sepulture - None know the hour, but all may prepare”. The door next to it is narrow, likely barely wide enough for a stretcher, made of simple wood. The road outside is quiet as a grave, and empty.

Spoiler

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The mortuary you need to pick up the body from. There’s only a small front office, and then a chamber where corpses are prepared and stored.
http://i.ibb.co/FbYfZ0W/Morgue3.png

[Captain Cap]

The Bound feels almost bad about taking advantage of a grieving family whose gravest sin would seem to be poverty, collecting a deceased loved one to unceremoniously leave her behind at the earliest opportunity to make room for someone more important to Our Hidden Mistress. But who is she to question the threads woven by the goddess of shadows, especially with a complicit Charnelite by her side?

Whatever qualms Diana might have left become even quieter inside the infamous Necropolis, in the face of her strong wish to be done and out quickly of that haunting place of ghosts and Morticians.
She doesn't try to mask her peeve when briefly expounding her idea once they have a moment, "Kurza, you should be quite adept among the dead, how about you sneak in and retrieve the target while Kaervac and I distract the living?" She thus turns to the Vermissian sage with the warmest smile she can manage given the circumstances, "I'm sure an erudite like you can strike up the most riveting conversation with the local undertakers. And if that isn't enough, well," she takes a sip from her trusty bottle, to dispel even just a tiny bit of gloom, "I can offer some good spirit myself."

[Lacco]

Kaervac

Humming a time-tune to measure the hour he allocated to the research, Kaervac peruses the maps. His eyes look for shortcuts, for safe passages, for secrets... he attempts not to memorize the exact locations, but to pick up those parchments that have some value for him and his companions. He excitedly passes his fingers over the parchments, and enjoys the cold, even if musty air, and the comfort of the chair.

Suddenly, he stops. The tune is not even at the end, but he hears something that makes the few hairs on the back of his head stand up. Why now? It's still too soon. He immediately stands up, grabs the maps he found already and makes a move through an opening in the back wall - it seems like a sewage pipe, but empty, and it leads to another tunnel. His fingers find markings and he slowly - measuring a five-heartbeat pause between each step - walks down the tunnel.

He makes his way to the meeting point, and finds some truth in Diana's words.

After all, he has to wait.

***

The Necropolis. Kaervac tries to push away all the facts and fiction that appears in his brain when he looks around, and focuses on words of his companions.

His first thought is to just create some chaos, and make sure that whoever is inside leaves as fast as possible, but listening to Diana, he gets and idea.

"Very well. I will then attempt to discuss their burial methods and processes - I have already been interested what Necropolis can teach us..." he chuckles. "A good spirit. Heh. You joker you."

His voice lowers as they venture near the door.

"However, if it goes wrong, I will definitely improvise. Be ready for it and do not negate anything I say: or the ruse will not work." His voice raises again. "Let's see if this wonderful establishment fulfills the demanding requirements for burial of our common friend."

He enters the door, looking around as if he was a potential customer. After all, the sign did not lie.