Café de Nuit

Ah hah, Tomas thinks, and also, oh jeze this poor kid, and numerous other notes along that line. Fishing around in his pocket, Tomas pulls out a handkerchief. "Here." He offers.

"Who's the lady?" Tomas adds, perhaps leaving out the capital L on purpose. He is a filthy agnostic, after all.

"Can we please stop arguing?" Kerrian asked, rubbing his temples, and trying ever so much to fight off a headache. "We can hopefully all agree on the fact that the situation now isn't good for anyone." He then paused a moment, looking to Celeste "And Celeste is right...we need symbols, something for everyone to rally around and find common cause. Because unless that can be found, things aren't going to get any better."

He then thought a moment. "I still think my idea for a donation required Ball is a good one, but I hate to say..I don't think it would get much attendance at first. Maybe a showing of something important?" Kerrian's eyes went between those in attendance, as if casting about for suggestions as to what, exactly.

"Madam Loiseau" Mr. Agale intervened diplomatically, "We are all armchair philosophers at the moment. There is no need to take Mr. Evrard's remarks personally. And Mr. Evrard, regardless of the purity of your intent, no lasting solution can be implemented without broad support among the citizenry. It would behoove you to keep that in mind when communicating your ideas." Although his voice was soft, it was full of ice, calming but at the same time giving the impression of a tutor chastising unruly pupils.

"Ultimately, our platitudes and aspirations will amount to little unless they are adopted by the populace. Even the current state of affairs in Falkovnia required acquiescence to their fate on the part of the serfs. Rather, if this situation is to be improved, we must shift our focus away for a time from ruminations about what must be done, and focus instead on the more ambitious task of determining how to promote the solution to the trying task of how to convince others to follow through with a coherent strategy. Everyone has a stake in the success or failure of the nation, from the lowliest menial to the haughtiest noble and even beyond the confines of Dementliu itself. Political strife here would lead to economic collapse which would have repercussions throughout the core."

Assisting Whistler with shutting up the two excitable people, if the DC is 10, I don't think I even need to roll.

Nerit narrowed her eyes, a shadow passing across her face. She leaned in toward Reine, balancing her hand on the grimy alley ground. "Then they were no true believers, were they? You don't need to go with them, no..."

She eyed Reine again, more kindly. Yet somehow the girl didn't fit with the surroundings. She was too...clean. Too meaty.

"Well, that cloak might be a good find on a cold night. Where'd you find it?" Nerit pointed to the garment casually, shifting her weight back to center.

The Rondelet Residence, Quartier-Savant, Port-a-Lucine; March 10th, 770, 6:16 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yalenusveler wrote:He then thought a moment. "I still think my idea for a donation required Ball is a good one, but I hate to say..I don't think it would get much attendance at first. Maybe a showing of something important?" Kerrian's eyes went between those in attendance, as if casting about for suggestions as to what, exactly.

"A donation required ball?" Madame Loiseau bubbled. "Whatever do you mean, my good young man?"

"M. Mauganson believes a charity ball should be held, with the proceeds of the evening going to help the poor," Professor Lessard explained, from where he had taken a chair. He had been sitting quietly with his hands steepled in front of him for most of the conversation.

"Oh! What a splendid idea!" Loiseau praised, brimming with excitment. "Why, we should arrange for it right away! Elizabeth, might I trouble one of your servants? I shall send a message to my dear boy at once. He'll take care of everything. Oh, but you're perfectly right, we must have a showing! Dear me, but I haven't got anything nearly grand enough for such an occasion. Dear Hugo, do you know anyone who might help?"

The nobleman put his cup down on the saucer an uneven clink. "Madame, you could have the star of my collection, if the University ever deigns to return it to me."

Cerise's hand flew to her mouth to cover an uncomfortable laugh, though Professor Lessard 's only reaction was to frown and lean back in his chair slightly. Fortuantely, both their reactions were rather handily covered by M. Evrard. "Mists, Hugo, you aren't going to go on about that again, are you? The poor man is trying to suggest a decent social effort here, and you're nattering on about your blasted mirror! Museum exhibits are not sorted out in one day, especially not with Madame Chastel as the curator. One little paperwork mixup and now suddenly you'd have us believe the entire University and Museum staff are in cahoots to snatch up a piece of fancy glassware."

"And well I should!" Hugo said irritably. "Once they got their hands on it, they flatly refused to return my mirror on several occasions with this exhibition as an excuse. And now the exhibition is closed and what do you know? Suddenly they have yet another excuse for why they can't give it back!"

"Dreadful, absolutely dreadful," Loiseau condemned. "If I were you, Hugo, I should tell everyone about this and make them give it back to you." Delarue nodded angrily.

Quartier-Ouvrier, Port-a-Lucine; March 10th, 770, 6:25 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"...Lady Ezra." Reine muttered, ignoring Tomas's offer of a handkerchief at first, until she suddenly rushed in and snatched it away. She blew her nose on it and wiped away the flowing tears. "But they are true servants. Ezra said so."

At Nerit's question, the tiny girl looked at the hideous yellow opera cloak, now curled into a tight ball of cheap fabric. Even curled up, you could tell it was far too large for Reine. Had she worn it, there would've been about a foot of material left over. "I took it. I'd never touched an opera cloak before. It wasn't stealing anyway, she threw it away. She didn't want it any more. I wanted to see what it was like."

"I've met lots of ladies." Tomas admits, rubbing the back of his head. Obviously this wasn't one of THOSE stories, thank goodness. And, well, it seems like cutting to the chase helped. Okay. "You don't remember what the woman who dropped the cape looked like, do you?"

Quartier-Ouvrier, Port-a-Lucine; March 10th, 770, 6:26 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"I don't know, I've never seen her." Reine shrugged, glancing at the cloak and then back at Tomas, her large, brown eyes still a little damp around the edges, but at least no longer crying. "Do you think I should go and give it back to her?"

Nerit exchanged a glance with Tomas, if he allowed it. "Do you know where she is?"

Pursuing the woman herself could be dangerous. Why was Nerit doing all this, anyway? She had the urge to go back to her dormitory, er, room back at Malchance. But there was something niggling at the back of her skull, floating around in the space between deja vu and creeping doubt.

The reflection in the glass...

Nerit sharply inhaled the alley air and refocused on Reine.

"I think she can spare it." Tomas grumbles, rubbing his eyes as though he had just seen something difficult to believe. He looks tired, all of a sudden, weighed down by some invisible load.

Then, something clicks. "...wait, how can you find her if you've never seen her?" He does share the surprised glance with Nerit.

Quartier-Ouvrier, Port-a-Lucine; March 10th, 770, 6:26 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Why should you care?" The girl said, favoring Tomas with a sullen glare. She did accept Tomas's reasoning, though, throwing the ugly-yellow opera cape over her shoulder. Now it belonged to Reine. "I can show you where she is, anyways."

Katja moved to join you as you exited the alleyway, tilting her head down to look at the hunched girl that was walking with you. "You found the cloak," the soldier stated, sounding slightly surprised at the fact. "Do we know where the owner is?"

"I'll take you," Reine murmured softly, clutching the balled cloth to her chest. The street girl slinked up against the building wall, as if hoping to meld into it at the first sign of any trouble.

"Very good," Katja said. After a very long afterthought, she added, "Thank you."

The soldier walked across the square to where Thierri was kneeling by the fountain. Katja eyed him with a cool look, before taking the hilt of her sword and belting him in the back of the head. The resulting stream of curses was garbled through clenched teeth, but it sounded ugly, and the look Thierri gave her was even uglier.

"We've leaving," Katja said, gesturing back to you as Thierri clutched at his skull. "Get up."

Thierri, uncharicteristically, did not retort. He got to his feet, rinsing his hands in the fountain - although the foul water could hardly be much cleaner than the streets themselves - and turned his head to examine the girl that was now standing with you. You could hear him give a slight sigh as he reached in his pocket for a cigarette, and then, as if thinking better of it, put it away.

"Let's go," was all he said.


The Rue Vervain Rookery, Quartier-Ouvrier, Port-a-Lucine; March 10th, 770, 6:46 PM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Reine led you ever deeper into the tangled slums of the Quartier-Ouvrier. She walked quickly, staying in the shadows, and stopping every so often to stare into the distance. Whether Reine was listening to hidden voices or simply trying to remember where she was in the maze of the Quartier-Ouvrier was a question of paranoia.

It was soon that you noticed another change, as the slums became, if it were possible, worse. Before, the buildings had been dirty and dilapidated, now they were half-ruined, shanties and abandoned tenements. The streets were unpaved, just mud and other substances you didn't care to identify, and the stench... the stench was nauseating.

The people who you saw were different as well. In the rest of the Quartier-Ouvrier, there was hopelessness, yes, there was despair, yes. But here, there was hatred. When you looked into the eyes of the beggars, when Katja and Tomas stared off the gangs of toughs with their knives and their cudgels, you saw hatred. This was the Rue Vervain Rookery, the festering heart of the Quartier-Ouvrier. Here the rule of law did not extend. Here, it was anarchy and hatred.

Reine led the way, tramping through the mud on bare feet, melting into the shadows whenever the armed thugs appeared. In time, she led you to a ramshackle tenement, stopping in front of the doors. The smell alone was enough to make you gag, and then you saw a huge black rat swimming through the mud. Reine looked up at the tenement for a few moments.

"She lives in here." She said with conviction.

"Then inside we go." Katja said, the military-styled longsword in her hands. She hadn't sheathed it since entering the Rookery.

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

Inside, the smell was more manageable, though now you were forced to contend with the sense of claustraphobia. The hallways were narrow here, and the ceilings just barely above your head. Not all of the rooms had doors, and as you passed through the occupants glared at you sullenly.

"Here it is." Reine said once you had ascended the rickety stairwell to the top floor of the tenement. The door was little more than a set of nailed together planks. Here and there, a few scraps of wood had been hammered into it to make it resemble a solid thing.

"Should we knock?" Thierri said with a side-glance towards Cyrus, sounding slightly aggravated. The magician didn't wait for a response, walking up to the door, examining it for a moment, and giving it a sharp rap with his knuckles. No sooner had his hand pushed back from the door than the door swung open, screaming on rusty hinges as it went. There was a loud thunk as a wood plank fell off the other side of the door, clattering onto the rotten wooden floor.

"Couldn't afford a lock," Thierri muttered, conjuring a small mage-light at the end of his hand. Katja looked at him impassively.

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

You could see the entire room from the hallway, not that there was very much to see. It was the size of a good-sized closet, and was furnished with the decor of a trash heap. There was no bed, just a pallet on the floor, covered with some thin blankets.

The only other furniture in the room, if it could be so dignified with the name of furniture, was an empty shipping crate with the initials CTC stamped on the side, which served the function of a table. On the crate was a mirror, a shard that had broken off some larger mirror long ago and been pressed into service. It shared space with a bleached-looking human skull, though after looking at it for a moment, you realized it to be fake. A very cheap notebook completed the tableau.

A few nails had been banged into the walls, and from them hung a variety of clothing, most of indeterminate origin. A very cheap Vebreker scarf and a pair of Lamordian-styled trousers were the only things you could definitely identify, the rest being the sort of cheap clothes that came out of the textile mills by the hundred-weight. Only an Ezran holy-symbol, hanging from a hook directly above the bed, looked expensive, though a cursory examination revealed it to be wood covered in gilt. Cheap gilt, at that.

"Thank you." Tomas says, quietly, half figuring Renie had left as soon as they went inside. Taking a note of the initials, Tomas(Who simply stood up straight, rather than draw his weapon, his disturbing proportions usually intimidating enough for most people.) picks up the notebook in question, paging through it quickly.

Mr. Agale clasped the back of his hand, leaning forward to the edge of his seat, going for the kill "Forgive my ignorance Monsieur. Though I hope to rectify the situation, I am still something of a foreigner in this land. What is the significance of this mirror I keep hearing about?"

M. Agale wrote:"Forgive my ignorance Monsieur. Though I hope to rectify the situation, I am still something of a foreigner in this land. What is the significance of this mirror I keep hearing about?"

Celeste raised one hand to her mouth in mild surprise. “Oh, M. Agale! A familiarity with a nation’s most closely treasured artifacts must be paramount in a traveler’s preparations! We shall simply have to furnish you with an education on the matter.”

She cleared her throat. “The Levi mirrors were the life’s-work of one Salvatore Levi, a half-Borcan gentleman of the utmost renown—and most deserving of it! Such impeccable craftsmanship…even for one who practiced art three long centuries ago, the detailing on the frames is so well-wrought as to be irreproducible, even today. I have been a first-hand first-hand witness of his finest works on several occasions, and I may confirm the experience to be an utterly transporting one. Of course, I needn’t make mention of the mirrors’ prominence as regards the founding of the Council!”

Mlle. Viardot turned towards Hugo, smiling apologetically. “Ah, but forgive me, M. Delarue: a mere dilettante must have no place in the conversation when a true connoisseur is present. I merely share my father’s passion for Levi’s legacy, and as such my interest may only be considered secondhand. I should be most eager to learn of your own personal experience with the Mirrors—to say nothing of the Mirror Brilliant, the prize of the collection! However did you come to own it—and what bureaucratic mishap prevents its reclamation?”

17 on Insight.

Kerrian was about to mouth some sort of statement along the lines of "What's so important about a mirror?" Or perhaps "Why would anyone want to take it?" Celeste made things thankfully much easier to remain silent. Instead, he was beginning to confabulate ideas for a Charity ball. Sad to think that the originator of the idea would likely to be unable to attend due to standards of folk present..but life is full of such injustices.

"Force the University to return a priceless item like a Levi mirror?" Lia says, not quite scoffing but indeed raising her eyebrows incredulously. "Easier said than done, madame. Easier said than done. I wonder though, monsieur, how came you by such a thing?"