The Shattered City: Chapter Two

[Nerit]

At first Nerit was heedless of the Captain; hadn't he simply choked on his tea? And why was her attention drawn to the window? She could barely peel her eyes away until there was a crash, a wet, splashing sound...

"Maga inter nos est!" she cried and tore her gaze to Cedolin in his fit. "Lady!" she added, and rushed toward him after Cyrus.

"Something just tore his throat from the inside..." came the rather quick diagnosis...

"Yes," she said to Kerrian. "Something sharp. Metal or glass? He would have felt it going down." She kept a hand on Cedolin's shoulder. "There is too much blood, the pieces would have been so large." Her words were largely M. Agale's reasoning. At this she checked the spattering of his blood. She saw no sharp pieces of anything, only the dark liquid of life.

"Agale, with that much blood it would have been out by now. He coughed up a storm of it. Any trace is gone...something else is the cause." The last words reflected Cyrus' request, as she gestured to him vaguely.

Nerit leaned over Cedolin, but her eyes were staring balefully toward the window.




Heal Check: 24
Arcana: 13, reroll 21
Religion: 13, reroll 12 Ouch.
Perception: 24

[yalenusveler]

Busy supporting Cedolin so as to ensure that the poor man doesn't drown in his own blood, even post healing, Kerrian noticed something. Or more specifically, noticed the absence of something.

"When the teacup fell..there was something reflective in it...I don't see it now..." Kerrian kept his spirit hound close, just in case a second attempt was made, though now making sure Cedolin survived the first was of far more importance, Kerrian's eyes taking on a silvery sheen again, flickering over the Captain.

Healing spirit again on Cedolin

[Nathan of the FoS]

Darius has the bowl tipped up and is shoveling in the last few bites of porridge, so his view of the unfortunate captain is obscured at the crucial moment. When Agale's shout rouses him, he leaps to his feet, misses Cyrus' significant looks (both of them) and instead leaps to the window.

Somehow, despite the fact that he hasn't come within twenty feet of where he left his sword on coming in, it's now clenched in his right hand.

"Nothing," he says, turning away from the window. "Nobody, no tracks. What was that you said, ah, Kerrian? Reflective? A razor blade, maybe?"

Perception 6 to notice the original source of all this confusion, perception 19 at the window.

[The Whistler]

Celeste was not particularly skilled at first aid, nor at determining potential assassination opportunities in a room devoid of obvious malefactors. For that matter, Celeste was not particularly skilled at anything that required paying attention to multiple things at once. Accordingly, Celeste yelped for about an eighth-second, reflexively threw her teacup halfway across the room, jumped up from her chair, and proceeded to dither nervously about the margins of the scene for the next quarter of a minute or so while more competent people saw to the situation. After this brief period of indecision, she stopped, appeared to steel herself toward some action or other, then grabbed a neatly folded tea towel and proceeded to help Kerrian support the Captain, keeping the linen between her arm and the gendarme at all times. She did not appear to be extremely comfortable with this, (you could see her struggling not to look), but it appeared to be the thing to do. Cedolin was, after all, a Nice Person.

Given the circumstances, she barely registered the silvery presence beside Kerrian, appearing content to assume that it was supposed to happen, somehow. "Oh, M. Mauganson, Sister Nerit...if anyone is capable of discerning the cause of... Oh, Captain Cedolin!"

11 on Arcana; nothing Nerit won't figure out.

[NeoTiamat]

Chateau Malchance, Quartier Marchand, Port-a-Lucine; March 24th, 770
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"We need to get him into a better position," the dommer said as he fetched the shards, "Do not mop up the tea. We may be able to find what was in it. Does anyone know how to identify dangerous substances?"

"I was drinking the tea just before he took that sip," Professor Lessard recollected, even as Favonius sped out of the kitchen in search of help. Remy picked up his tea cup, scrutinizing it, then set it down and knelt by the shattered tea cup. "Several of us were. It seems whatever was in his teacup was only in his," he said, his long fingers hovering above the spilled liquid. His eyes flicked away, narrowing for a moment.

"I have like four hundred different vials in my room with warding runes and stuff on them!" Cerise cascaded, either very excited or very panicked - it was very hard to tell with her. "I'll go get them although I don't know how we're going to get that tea in there. Wow, that was crazy! Rich, Rich!" She shook Richard's shoulder bodily, trying to get his attention. "Hey, can you heal him, Rich? I know you're not a priest yet but surely if you ask really nice-!"

Richard looked slightly shellshocked and completely distracted, turning even paler than the parchment he'd been writing on. The blood had run out of his face, and he was splattered in ink, from where the quill pen had been pressed too hard against the paper and snapped. Tearing his eyes away from the kitchen, Richard vaulted over the table to get to Cedolin's side. "There is, there are limits to what the, the human body can recover from," he told Cerise grimly, examining the downed Captain. "Mr. Mauganson has, has already done everything, everything that can be done."

Kerrian kept his spirit hound close, just in case a second attempt was made, though now making sure Cedolin survived the first was of far more importance, Kerrian's eyes taking on a silvery sheen again, flickering over the Captain.

Cedolin leaned up and coughed some more. More blood came out, but it was only remnants and leavings. The gendarme still looked absolutely ghastly, his face markedly paler than it should've been. Still, had it not been for Kerrian's rapid intervention, corpse-like pallour would've been the best Cedolin could have looked forward to.

"Sweet Lady... I've led assassins to my only allies!" Cedolin choked out, his voice as hoarse and ragged. "Such a fool, such a fool, such a fool... I need to get clear, get away! Before worse come!"

Cedolin surged to his feet, showing startling energy for one who had so recently had a brush with death. He swayed on his feet, blood drops falling from his gory chest, then rushed for the door, pushing all aside in his frenzy to escape. Long seconds passed as the gendarme fought with the door knob, but finally he wrenched the front door of the Chateau Malchance open. Cedolin staggered out into the cold, morning air, moving faster with every passing moment, scattering crimson droplets on the fresh snow.

Behind him, Cedolin left a good amount of blood, a great deal of worry, and a letter of introduction to Bastion Armand Pineau, prelate of Ste. Mares des Larmes.

[lostboy]

Its early in the morning, too early for Nicolas to be the first to leap into action. In fact the shock of the scenario unfolding before him causes Nicolas to actually bite his cigarette in half sending burning embers cascading over himself and the paper he was reading.

Getting to his feet and quickly stamping them out, he watches aghast as the man takes his leave. Quickly following him to the door Nicolas watches the departing figure and scans the immediate grounds of the Chateau in the unlikely event there is anything to be found. Whoever did this was certainly clever.

Perception 16 - anything worthy of note outdoors?

[DocBeard]

Tomas bursts out with Nicolas, berating himself for not moving faster; he figured his clumsy limbs were best out of the way while the nimbler people did the good work. "Verdamnit los!" Eisenwald hisses, seeing a faint path and debating something.

"I'll try and catch up to him. He'll be killed in that state." Tomas draws his sword, the strange, alien-looking metal gleaming in the bloody snow. "Figure out how this happened-and be careful." A brief thought, of Remy and his playing with his ring, flashes in Tomas's mind, but he rejects it, despite the contemptible company he's ensnared himself in. "If Lemercer's smoke demon can get in the house, so can other invisible predators."

With that, Tomas is off, rushing into danger! Unfortunately "danger" includes a patch of ice, causing Eisenwald to slip and slam into a garbage can. Letting out a few choice words in Lamordian, Eisenwald is back on the case!

(OOC: 7 on my athletics roll.)

[Kaitou Kage]

Cyrus looked about ready to follow Cedolin when Tomas broke out after him. Eisenwald acted like a bumbling idiot but the dommer knew he could be trusted to get certain jobs done. Assuming the Lamordian could pick himself up off the ground, this was one of those jobs.

"There are no tracks in the snow? No signs of trespassers?" The Hazlani held himself as high as he could, back straight. He wasn't a very tall man but he had a way of making himself seem taller than he was. It was a special kind of magic that all Lawgiver priests learned early in their careers. Everyone knew the voice of law carried more weight when delivered by a taller man.

"Then either the assassin can fly or he is in this house and has been the whole time," Cyrus continued. From his posture and his tone of voice he was well aware of what he was saying. "One of us -- I should say, one of you -- is a dissident."

The dommer nudged his brother surreptitiously, sending a message Darius would understand. Then he tilted his head and looked down at Remy.

"What did you find, Professor Lessard?" he asked. "Anything?"

[Nathan of the FoS]

Darius, doing a pretty fair imitation of his panther totem, is at the door about a half-step behind Tomas behind Nicolas and Tomas. Being smaller and more graceful on his feet, the Mulani slips easily past the hulking Lamordian as he sprawls on the front path and is at Cedolin's elbow in a moment more.

Grabbing him by the upper arm, he detains him firmly and says, "Look, Captain. No tracks but yours on the front walk. Nobody's come with you."

As he says this, what he's really saying strikes Darius like a hammer. If nobody followed him and did this...it must have been one of us. Hoping that the captain is too distracted to reach the same conclusion, Darius turns and looks for...

"Eisenwald. Maybe you accompany the captain back to town? Captain, do not exert yourself, you have lost blood. One moment and I will go with you."

Coming back inside, Darius is just in time to hear Cyrus announce his own conclusion--either there is an invisible flying mage about (not absolutely impossible, but not too Light-burned likely) or it was one of them.

Looking around, he crosses to where the captain's blood stains the floor, crouches to stare at it for a moment, and then shakes his head. "Maybe monsieur Eisenwald and I go into town with the captain, make sure he arrives all right," he declares, standing.


Athletics 24 to detain the captain in his headlong flight. Arcana 17 to see if the teacup, tea, or blood retain any sign of magical influence.

[Kaitou Kage]

Cyrus nodded to his brother.

"That would be best, I think," he murmured.

[Vaasi]"We will talk when you return."

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"One of us, you say?" Lia repeats Cyrus' words. "An interesting claim, but difficult to support. I have heard of spells that could be laid on a victim, only to trigger when certain conditions were met.

Sadly, it is not possible anymore to determine whether this spell came here with the captain or that it was lying in wait for him. It was on the tea cup." Lia points at the shattered fragments of china. "It reeked of necromancy, but I could not define it any better than that. It had arcane rhythm and is too sharply delineated to be primal, but it echoes of a faith spell as well. Neither fish nor fowl, impossible to categorize."

Lia casts a Syblinne gaze on the two Hazlani and gives them a mirthless smile. "You are quick to point fingers, boy, for someone from a land known for its wizards. No matter. I imagine there will be plenty of finger-pointing going around soon enough. But I know I am innocent of this deed, for one very simple reason: I am as subtle as a hammer. If I want someone dead, you will know because you'll see me blasting away at them with spells, or possibly attacking them with a weapon."

[Nathan of the FoS]

"You are quick to deny, madame, for someone not accused of anything," Darius replies. "Sympathetic magic of some kind is not impossible, but my brother's explanation is simpler, is it not? At any rate, I think it unwise for the captain to spend more time here, and I will go with him to the city."

Nodding at Cyrus, he slips back outside and comes down the walk.

"So. We go, then," he says to Tomas and Captain Cedolin.

[Kaitou Kage]

Cyrus merely smiled and largely ignored Lia's accusation. His brother had stood up for him and Lia reacted exactly as the dommer hoped.

[lostboy]

Nicholas watches the drama surrounding the two Vaasi Burly boys with a carefully concealed amused smile. Then straightening his face he approaches Darius.

"I rather think I may accompany you on this little errand, my good Dommer. This atmosphere of the morbid does nothing for my mood at this ridiculous hour of the day, and another pair of eyes is nothing to sniff at afterall."

With that Nicolas twirls his cane and pushes his glasses back up his nose. "Shall we?"

[Nerit]

"It reeked of necromancy, but I could not define it any better than that. It had arcane rhythm and is too sharply delineated to be primal, but it echoes of a faith spell as well. Neither fish nor fowl, impossible to categorize."

Nerit's hands were balled into fists as she stared at the window. She looked shell-shocked.

Reflective...

Clicking, clicking, clicking.

Surfaces...

"Sympathetic magic of some kind is not impossible, but my brother's explanation is simpler, is it not?"

The nun whirled on the twins and spoke to them as one. "Cur, none of us have done this! We are not powerful enough, not you, not even Lia! You want to know someone who could? Rex mei. Azalin!"
Her volume dropped to normal. "I will give it to the natives to devise who or what in their country is strong enough for scrying spells of this magnitude."

Her eyes were glossy as she walked to the back of the Chateau and collapsed on a couch, forehead in her hand.