The Shattered City: Chapter Four

[DocBeard]

"What can I say, mine herr, I've always been something of a patchwork man anyway..." Tomas snorts at the implication; even if a part of him has always wanted to cultivate a serious illness just to see how it would effect him. "So much for a kinder, gentler death, eh?"

oooooh wow all of a sudden its all he can do to keep standing. Tomas stumbles, eyes lidding, as the siren call of sleep cranks the volume up a few notches. Tomas stabs Ivorsen into the floor, using the shaking pain that lances up his arm and into his chest to focus himself. "...it doesn't have to happen like this."

[The Whistler]

"You contradict yourself, mademoiselle."

"Forgive my upholding the point under such circumstances, M. Boucher, but it is you who forget yourself...Sir..."

You had never really seen Celeste being tired, before, let alone asleep. There was her default setting, which brooked no lapse in enthusiasm, and there was a regular four-hour period in which you presumed, by process of elimination, that some sort of dormant state occurred. You couldn't imagine there being any intermediate between the two extremes: it seemed fitting that she just switch off as soon as her head hit the pillow, perchance to dream dreams with too many rainbows and bunny rabbits in them.

In any case, thanks to Thanatos' influence, you could now witness Celeste being tired. It rather looked like Celeste having had too much to drink. Which you had also never seen, but, you know, there was a bit of stumbling.

"I...We only seek to recall you to yourself!"

[Nathan of the FoS]

Mercator seems to hunch up beneath the weight of Death's words, as if feeling the pressure of a great weight. He seems oddly shrunken and slow; only his eyes retain their customary vitality.

"Will you come down, monsieur?" he asks quietly. "We have some business to conduct before we can allow ourselves to rest."

[NeoTiamat]

0 Days, 1 Hours, 19 Minutes
Rue Vervain Rookery, Quartier-Ouvrier, Night of April 24th, 770
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In a groggy voice she cried, "Why, M. Boucher, we hadn't thought of leaving. Is that entirely necessary?"

    
"It has proven itself so. I can see the fatigue in your steps, and the burns upon some of your cheeks," Thierri replied. "Fear not, bonne soeur. I shall wake you in time for the grande finale."
    

Tomas stabs Ivorsen into the floor, using the shaking pain that lances up his arm and into his chest to focus himself. "...it doesn't have to happen like this."

    
"I could not ask for a better performance. The white knight has come to save the day, he speaks his part perfectly. Magnifique." Thierri laughed, an unusual sound, rich with humor, before blowing a kiss down below to all of you. "But I fear I must spurn my proper role, Eisenwald. The audience comes to see the magician perform his trick, but loves it all the more when they fail; so the hero must sometimes lose what he came for. It must indeed end like this. Win or lose, it makes no difference."
    

"I...We only seek to recall you to yourself!"

    
"Ah, mademoiselle, mademoiselle..." The young man's face turned slightly somber. "You are too late, ma cherie. What little I had of a soul has been carved away. I was dead the day I fell into that well. I am a selfish creature, Celeste, to have spoken to you afterwards."
    

"Will you come down, monsieur?" he asks quietly.  "We have some business to conduct before we can allow ourselves to rest."

    
"Non, monsieur, I must refuse you," the man with the burning-blue eyes replied. "A performer is nothing without his stage, and I see no better one than the one I stand upon."

[yalenusveler]

OOC:Fluff text to follow later. Using Sudden restoration on Tomas and Rex to grant both of them a save vs the slow that is currently going on.

[Nerit]

Nerit glanced once to Celeste and did her best to suppress a yawn--it was actually all rather exciting and such. She returned a sharp glare at Thierri, then, and spoke these words:

"You're right. You're a selfish cad! Was she a game to you?" She pointed at Celeste, quite rude in Mordentish etiquette. "A little toy with which to pull its heartstrings?
All you think of is your power, your gain! Have you not a sparkle of imagination for the woman you've nearly taken? Do you have any idea what you've put her through? Monsieur, you insult her honor!
The least you could do is come down here and wipe her eyes dry before you say 'Adieu!'"

[The Whistler]

"The least you could do is come down here and wipe her eyes dry before you say 'Adieu!'"

Well, this didn't make sense, because Celeste wasn't crying.

Wait, no. No, actually... Hold on.

Everyone living in the tenements within a two-block radius of the summoning circle spontaneously contracted a minor head cold. And now Celeste was crying. This wasn't the quiet sobbing in the corner of three days ago: this took dedication. It was the sort of cry that one packed lunch for, and that one had to redo one's hair after. One would have called it masterful, if it hadn't been so unquestionably sincere as to perjure any suggestion of artifice.

It was spectacular. And all of you felt absolutely awful about it.

"I...I have been unjustly used, Sir! Oh, to think that my lofty hopes could be so cruelly dashed upon the breakers of circumstance, and with no whisper of a happy resolution to light the dreary tableau! It is simply too much to bear!

Sister Nerit suddenly found a socialite burying her head in her shoulder. She would almost definitely have to launder that habit.

Diplomacy of 32(!) to distract Thierri, and ideally get him down there to touch Celeste. Celeste's crying is very persuasive.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Mercator spreads his hands wide, glances at Celeste, and half-bows to Thierri, as if to say, You see the situation, monsieur. Stepping slightly to one side, he makes a very clear show--nothing ostentatious, mind you, but quite unmistakable--of turning his attention elsewhere, so as to offer at least the pretense of privacy to the young couple.

Diplomacy 19 to Aid Another on Celeste's check. Whistler, did you remember to include the +1 bonus from Mercator's Group Diplomacy ability?

[The Whistler]

I didn't! Make that a 33.

[lostboy]

Nicolas very nearly breaks in spontaneous applause at the display form Miss Viardot. Fortunately he doesn't, and in fact manages to compose himself enough to actually be helpful, or at least as helpful as Nicolas generally is, at least this time he was enspelled rather than drunk...

"There, there Cherie" he says gently, "regardless of the callous indifference of death to your plight, rest assured there are those amongst the living who shall not see your hopes and dreams cast so cruelly aside." He pauses briefly to cast a glance upwards, one that decidedly communicates his intention to death-Therri with a lascivious wink. "If he cares not then perhaps its is time to look to one who does..."

Aid another on diplomacy 25

And a spot of bluff 30 + 5 for friendly deception giving 35 as Nicolas attempts to drive Therri mad with jealousy (Nicolas does seem to do rather well at rubbing people up the wrong way, maybe this might rub Therri in the coming down off the roof way...)

[Kaitou Kage]

While all of this happened, a shadow detached from a nearby building and skulked into the darkness.

Rex had snatched the bag of runestones at some point between there and here. He'd listened to Inkeri, learned what was to be done, and took the task upon himself. Then he spent the rest of the trip wondering what possessed him to do this. Perhaps it was a fear of losing his way of life. Perhaps it was a madness-induced desire to get involved in whatever these housemates got themselves into. Perhaps it was a sudden need for adrenaline, a desire to hear the blood pumping in his ears again as he relived the glory days of his youth.

Rather ironic, Rex mused. He was only in his twenties, yet he thought of his "glory days." He could have them again, he was sure. Perhaps one day he would.

Perhaps tonight he would.

Saved vs. Slow with a 15 and scuttling off to place runestones!

[NeoTiamat]

0 Days, 1 Hours, 13 Minutes
Rue Vervain Rookery, Quartier-Ouvrier, Night of April 24th, 770
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"You're right. You're a selfish cad! Was she a game to you?" She pointed at Celeste, quite rude in Mordentish etiquette. "A little toy with which to pull its heartstrings?"

"A fine eulogy from Darkon's clergy. The dead are such selfish creatures, are they not? They leave their loved ones behind, with no regard for their feelings." The magician's eyes flared again. His face was unreadable at this distance, lit only by the faint glow that suffused the air around him.

"Mais non. What do you seek to say, bonne soeur? You call me simply as I am. I am a selfish, greedy thing - for that which Death has taken, it never returns."

"I...I have been unjustly used, Sir! Oh, to think that my lofty hopes could be so cruelly dashed upon the breakers of circumstance, and with no whisper of a happy resolution to light the dreary tableau! It is simply too much to bear!

"If he cares not then perhaps its is time to look to one who does..."

"And now, my dear Celeste, perhaps it is you finally believe me," Thierri replied darkly. "I have always told you I am a wicked man, a rabid wolf that plays the role of a tame dog. Death has always had its hooks within me."

There was a sudden, fleeting impression that a mask had slipped - where Thierri had stood was something hollow, a few scraps of pale flesh and bone, filled with cracks that glowed with a phosphorescent fire. Then it was gone, dissolving into the night air like wisps of smoke. For a moment, it seemed as if he had vanished.

It did not last for long. You could see the darkness massing at the foot of the building. Here were the missing wraiths, black as midnight, like holes cut in reality; bird-like creatures with blazing eyes. They twisted together, growing pale as smoke as they did, building up on one another to form the shape of a man. Here, wings folded to make a back, there, ghostly beaks fused together to form a shoulder. Thanatos stood before you, a wave of unimaginable heat roiling forth from where he stood.

"When I was young, I swore I would give nothing to Death, and anything it tried to take, I would fight him for." Thierri began to walk toward Celeste and Nerit and Nicolas, looking only at the former. "But now, we are the same. And Thierri is dead."

Celeste can walk up and touch him without trouble. Attempts to use Bluff or Thievery to bind him without him noticing require a roll of said skill, attempts to just rush him or use Athletics to lasso him will require rolling initiative; use of powers, other skills, or magic items will, of course, vary from case to case. Consider the stones currently half-placed (3/5), with Rex finishing this round if he makes a Stealth check.

[Kaitou Kage]

While all this was happening, Rex scuttled through the shadows with an odd mix of giddy excitement and calmness under fire. He'd done this before -- and more. Well, he hadn't tried to sneak around Death before, but he did steal from a mage in Martira Bay once. The pharmacist had to think of this moment as just stealing from another mage. Otherwise his resolve just might break.

Another runestone down. Only two more to go.

Stealth 27

[Rock of the Fraternity]

"Is he?" Lia asks, and spreads her arms wide. Her cloak billows out on the night wind like batwings - or a waith's tatters. "Is he, indeed? Because, oh Death, you speak and act quite theatrically. Quite like Thierri Boucher, to be frank, even if it is rude of me to say so."

Abruptly, Lia swings her staff around and up, holding it like a bar between Thanatos and herself.

"'Go not quietly into that gentle night', the poet says," the Mage quotes. "He speaks of death, which comes at the end of ripe old age and the pain of an aged body. How then should one go into the kind of night that threatens to absorb you, Monsieur Boucher? Are you truly so resigned to fall into that abyss, where the Triarchs dwell? Why then, are you putting up such a fine show for Mademoiselle Celeste, why are you trying so hard to make her hate you? I do not believe that there is nothing of life left that you do not yearn for, Thierri."

At the mentioning of the name, the crystal on Lia's staff starts to glow, bright and golden as the sun.

(OOC: Greetings, all you kind people. I'm rather afraid I have started Initiative.
Lia attempts a Stealth roll to use Mage Hand and surreptitiously slip one of the straps around Thierri/Thanatos' ankles.
The roll comes up 18. Now, I would surely appreciate it if you guys gave me some bonuses on the roll -- who knows, we might get lucky -- but I'll understand if you don't. In any case, combat's on, it seems.)

[Nerit]

Nerit was surprised how readily Celeste caught on. There was nothing to do but credit the lady and give her the shoulder freely--though a little guiltily since Katja's jacket would have to be laundered.



Got a 1 on the Initiative. Good luck, all <_<.