Fights, Justice, and Earth Magic

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, TristiaLeave a comment

I wake up for half a second in Klyce’s arms, but a sharp stab in my back brings the darkness again. The next thing I know, a potion is being poured down my throat and we’re surrounded by dead ninjas. Maribeth is flickering in and out of reality, and the girl from the recorded images is standing nearby. We can also hear the sound of rushing water. I curl up in a ball, no more water, no more sharks, but Klyce shakes me and grabs my arm as the water rushes in. Half-blind in the rushing water and darkness, we do the only reasonable thing, and allow blind Nat to lead us out.

Once we get out in the bay and then back to shore. The girl’s brother arrives and the others thank him for helping in the fight. There’s a quick discussion about what will happen to Alice and Klein for their crimes, and he agrees to let us keep them. Xin Yue then surprises us all by saying she wants to stay here. She wants to help me with my magic. Ichi says he has to return home, and we promise to keep her safe. He is reluctant, but allows her to stay, and disappears off into the night.

We all head home, and Remy explains what happened with him and Ichi and Alice and Maribeth. He says they told Xin Yue all about me. We tell him that the invisible servants are the ones that messed up our house, so he calls Barry over. Barry tells us there is no way to override the guest protocols, and anyone we let in has the right to order the servants around. A problem for another time.

Klyce calls a group meeting and says we have some things to dicuss.

1) We have to take Alice to the authorities. We have to explain all about the ninjas and the kidnapping and the dominating, but somehow, we have to keep Xin Yue out of it. We have to emphasize that her experiments were a failure, so they don’t try again. And we have to tell them that the girl went home.

2) Hardin Klein? Dalish is all up in arms over being dominated by him, and he was responsible for the group that tortured Xin Yue. We talk Dalish down, he was in a bad place, and he didn’t actually make Dalish do anything he wasn’t already doing (tell the truth), and he didn’t actually know what the others were doing in the basement. He needs to take responsibility, but we don’t want to get him exeuted.

3) Xin Yue can stay with us. She says she’ll eventually find a place in Xingtown, but will stay at our apartment for now.

4) Then we talk about the killing. Klyce is Pissed at Dalish for killing people with his magic when Klyce had them under control. Remy and Dalish insist that they will kill people who are trying to kill them. Klyce asserts that people trying to kill him are not a threat to the rest of us, and not really a threat to him. We have to be better than they are.

Remy agrees that we won’t kill people if we have a choice. Dalish says he needs different spells, because most of his are lethal. He also insists that going this route will get at least one of us killed. We all agree not to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary.

Remy then brings up the fae. Klyce isn’t so worried about the monsters, likens them to beasts. We also wonder if we’re actually killing them, or just sending them back where they came from. More investigation is needed.

5) What about the spellbooks we have found? With no one alive to claim them, we decide to keep them.

6) The flask. Oh, man. This one was a crazy arguement. Klyce did not believe we should keep it, it’s too powerful and dangerous. Remy wants to keep it and use it to trap monsters attacking us, but says it can only hold one being. He’s not sure how Alice put multiple inside. I wonder what good a flask full of monster is, once you put a monster in, you can’t use the flask anymore unless you let the monster out again. Then you still have to deal with the monster. Klyce says our bosses may ask for the flask and it’ll be out of our hands anyway. Maribeth is adamently against using it to trap anyone, ever. Remy doesn’t trust the other mages with its power. Klyce puts our options to a vote.

We vote that we will give it if requested.

We vote to give it to them even if they don’t ask for it. Remy still doesn’t agree, and it feels like the Dawnmother all over again.

We agree that we will take a day and study the flask first, to see if there is any way to un-make it, so that no one gets it.

Then we go to bed. After a day of trying, we are not closer to destroying it, so we prepare our report for the next morning.

In the morning, we ask Xin Yue about the flask and she says it is evil and older than her people. They symbols on it older than their language. We gather up Alice and Klein and head to the hall of Justice. Along the way, Remy suggests giving the flask to Aleria. This seems a good compromise. At reception, we ask after her, but are told she’s generally not in her office here. Nat asks if she left a note, but there is nothing.

We go find Brock, who directs us to Rictus’ office. It’s pretty awful, starting with creepy armor and not ending with a bone and skull desk, and an organ playing softly in the corner. We turn in our report and present Alice and Klein. Rictus reads our report and then glides over to Alice. He pulls her spirit out of her body to ask if we are telling the truth, and she says yes. He drops her to the ground. Then he asks Klein his roll in all of this. He explains his unwitting part and is also dropped to the floor.

He asks if there is anything else, and when we say no, he tells us to archive the evidence. Maribeth asks to speak to him and everything goes dark. When the cloying darkness receeds, they are standing together. He says he has decided Alice should be executed for her crimes. Maribeth immediately calls forth a pillar of flame to consume her body and her life, while the rest of us stare, slack-jawed. He dismisses us and we hurry away. The boys have a quick go about Maribeth fullfilling a lawful execution, but my mind is buzzing too loud to listen.

We head to the archive with our evidence, and manage to arcane lock and veil the magic aura of the flask before turning it in. Hopefully it will just be filled away and never used again. Nat, Maribeth, and I head to the Dawnmother’s temple for some fresh air, and cleansing of spirit after all that horribleness.

We get some time off after that. I spend a good deal of it working with Xin Yue. She teaches me some of her language, and about her magic. She pulls her power from the earth, without raping it of mana like our wizards. (Her words.) She says she can teach me, but it will come at a price. Her price is that she can only eat meat. I agree, and learn that my price will be never cutting hair from my body. I’ll have to be careful around the crazy fireballs, I guess, but this new way gives me an extra bit of a boost to my magic.

Remy snags me one day to go try and talk to the fae in the woods at school. I get met by servires who say the woods is closed. I try to insist that I have governmental authority, but they insist it doesn’t matter. The woods are closed, they say, and offer to get the quartermaster. I agree, and when two go off to do that, I Dust Devil the remainder and take off at a dead run into the woods after Remy, who had snuck by their notice.

We get all the way to the pool where we met the tree-lady before, but the tree is a stump, and there is a creeping rot in the woods. Remy says there was magic here – necromatic and transmutive, but he can’t pin it down. I push on to the hut of the old woman, but it is also gone. I try to meditate on my connection to these creatures, but nothing. Remy asks if he should use the conjure spell, and I agree.

A beautiful woman carved from wood appears before us. I greet her and she bows her head to me. She sees Remy and begins to dance, though there is no music. I encourage Remy to join her, if he wants to make friends. It takes him a minute, but he gets the hang of the dance on his second try. He asks if she can understand him, and she reponds in English.

I like you, Remy. You get me out of here? It is bad here.

He stumbles a bit, and I encourage her that we’re there to help. He tells her that she needs to look a bit less conspicuous, and she transforms into a staff.

On our way out, the quartermaster meets us at the forest edge and declares us banned from the school grounds. Ugh! Like I want to go to that school! But we’ll have to go back eventually, maybe Dalish can talk to Rictus for us. Once we pass the gates, we can feel our way locked behind us. The lady transforms back into herself. Remy says she needs to look more like us, like me, so she transforms into a naked woman. He blushes to brightly! I convince her to create clothes as well, and we had home. Remy is nervous, but I tell him I’ll back him.

We introduce her around to the group. She recognizes what blinded Nat. Remy explains why he summoned her, and that she might be able to give us answers. He asks what she needs and she eyes him up and down. He seems confused. Has he forgotten James already? I explain to her that he’s a bit slow on the uptake, but she can teach him. She drags him off to his room and we don’t see much of him for a long while.

Ninjas and Sharks

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We ran around the apartment looking for clues. Everything is a wreck, there’s blood painted on the walls. All the lab stuff we brought over is gone. The doorman didn’t see anyone come or go, but suggests our servants can fix the mess. Heading back downstairs, I call out for them, and Barry apologizes. Wait, what?? He says that the other servants made the mess, but he didn’t see it happen, didn’t see who left after. I order him to clean up the mess while we discuss how to quickly go after them

Leaving a note for Remy, should he ever come back, we head out to Xingtown, carrying Klein. We don’t have enough magic to get there quickly, so foot it is. When we are halfway across on the ferry, a ninja in blue comes down and a whole group of shadowy men attack. I levitate up off the ferry and let the fight move on without me. Dalish manages to get them to talk.

They told Remy to go inside and bring their stuff out. When he didn’t come back out, but we did, they assumed foul play and treachery. I let my spell go and swim after them. Dalish keeps explaining what happened, while Klyce tosses me a ring and pulls me aboard. They say the Koga clan stole his sister. We convince them that we are not their enemy, at least not today. I ask about his sister’s magic, and he says it is rare. We convince them that we’ll go find her and bring her back. They say they will watch.

Finishing our ferry ride with another discussion of killing and killing by leading killers to other killers. We’re not to kill the killers, but we can only control our own actions. Using Locate, we run around Xingtown until we get a ping, 500 feet below us. Heading into the sewers, we find no way down. Coming back up, we look around and decide Lu Bai’s dojo might give a way down.

We knock, but there is no answer. Gerhardt sends in his snake and finds it empty, but Lu Bai is in the back office with his sword drawn. Klyce knocks again and shouts for him. He comes to the door and tries to shoo us away, but we tell him we are looking for the Koga and explain. He says he cannot help us, there is nothing here that can help you, but leaves his door open.

We head inside and look around. Nothing sticks out, until Nat uses her wand. There’s a dummy in the corner. We mess with it for awhile until Klyce just grapples with it, and there is a click. We head down a 30 foot ladder. We all head down after Klyce sets off a trap. There are tripwire everywhere, and pits, and tunnels going every which way.

Eventually, we get to a well-lit room with a matted floor and a dias in the center. There is a black iron shell on the platform. The wall is covered in writing. Once we all get into the room, the door closes behind us, and 4 ninjas appear and attack us. The fight is bloody. Dalish keeps ringing his bell and murdering them! Klyce manages to knock out the last one, instead.

Nat finds a hinge on the shell, revealing a slide downwards into the dark. We all slide down after a quick check for traps at the top. Oh gods, this is fast and so many twists and turns. Suddenly I’m alone. Then I’m splashing down into water. There’s something in here with me. Something bumping into me. I have no more magic. I don’t know what to do! Pain. Blackness.

Ninjas, Betrayal, and Captives

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The screaming start immediately, and I am not the only one. Something has stabbed me in the side! I reach out to Alice to cast on her and myself, then fly up and the darkness receeds below me. There are two bubbles of darkness in the warehouse, and everyone stumbles back out into the lighted area. Projectiles come flying out of the darkness, embedding themselves in my flesh and I fly straight back out of the building entirely.

Most of the others join me, but not for long. Remy goes charging back in to save Alice and Francine. Gerhardt sends a message to Maribeth (and Klyce) that we’ve been attacked. Then everyone is back inside, except for me, flying above the street and bleeding all over dirt below.

It isn’t long before I see Klyce and Maribeth approaching on ghostly steeds. I waves and fly up and down until they see me. I explain that everything went dark inside and then someone started stabbing us, and they head right on inside. They were with Poissant and told him before then rushed to us, so I continue staying outside, still bleeding, to wait for him.

It isn’t long, though, before the darkness is gone. I carefully re-enter the building, but the fight is over, and somehow Nat is inside. Alice is still there, but Francine has been killed, and one of the attackers has been decapitated. The others are saying something to Gerhardt about a dog? Remy takes a look at the dead man and finds scarred flesh on his back and hands.

Klyce tells Gerhardt that they need to talk about killing and then Remy gets into it with him. Klyce Will Not condone murder, even in self-defence, and Remy feels it’s justified to kill someone trying to kill you. Things get heated until Remy storms out. Klyce asks if any of the rest of us want to object to a no killing people rule, and we all demure.

It’s at this point that Klein finally arrives. We turn on him about everything that’s been going on, and all his staff who have been murdered. He goes on about how he went to Xing and studied their legends of an immortal emperor and the Woojen. (I really should ask someone how to spell that…) They were able to tap into raw mana without refining or consuming it. Klein found (Stole!) some relics that hinted at a path forward that we might take. When I ask about the thefts, he says there weren’t any Woojen left, as though that excuses it.

As he went on, Klyce asked if maybe they were like me. I don’t know, maybe, but it sounds like they knew what they were doing, maybe did it intentionally?

Klein offers to show us the relics. He claims that he doesn’t know what the killers want. Said he didn’t even know his people were being targeted. We tell him that we’re taking him out of here, and to gather his things and the relics, it’s not safe any more. They know where he is. He grabs a bunch of soil and rock samples, a staff covered in rules with a jade crystal on top, and some figurines. He has a small shrine, too, but it’s a bit much to be carrying across the city. Dalish sits for a few minutes and casts some magic on the staff. He says it’s a Staff of Withering, which sounds pretty horrible to me. We ask about the blood and meat and he says his rituals require it, but claims it isn’t blood magic.

We take him back over to our apartment, hoping that no one will be able to get in the magically sealed door. We set him up in the alchemy lab and he starts lecturing us, just like Malden used to. Why do we have to refine mana? Then launches into this crazy theory that the earth is a sphere of mana contained only by thin layers of rock and dirt. He says it’s at least thirty percent mana, but that it is kept in check and underground by the will of the planet! He claims that refining it breaks that bond to the world, and makes it usable by people. I mistakenly tell him I don’t need refined mana, can’t use it, and he gets Super interested. The rest have my back though. Nobody’s going to make Me a lab experiment.

We change the subject, back to our investigation. Did Greg tell him that he was going public with his complaints about the rituals? Klein has no idea what we’re talking about. Says everyone was happy to be working on the project. We ask what Else was going on at his lab, but he insists there was nothing. We tell him what the letter says, but he has no idea what would have been so upsetting and cost human diginity.

We all decide to go back to the lab to check it out. Maribeth doesn’t want to leave him alone, so she stays while the rest of us head out. Klyce and Dalish head to speak to LuBai, while Gerhardt, Nat and I go back to the lab. Remy still hasn’t come home. We find Poissant still at the lab, and start searching more carefully. Nat finds a secret door that has an arcane lock on it. She can’t pick the lock and Gerhardt and I can’t break down the door. Gerhardt sends a message to Klyce and he comes in swinging, knocking the door right off the hinges.

There are stairs down to another lab here. There are more samples like upstairs, but also a magical circle, and various unfriendly looking prods and probes. There are also strange glass circles pointed at the circle. When Dalish looks through one at Nat, he can see her skeletons and motes of mana floating around inside her. I step in front and Dalish says he can’t even see my bones, I’m just made up of mana!

The equipment down here looks a bit newer than upstairs. There are also empty filters and mana jugs. We find another lens that seems to slow down time in front of it and records what it sees. We fiddle with it until we can back up and see what it has recorded recently.

Greg comes down the stairs, picks up an iron flask, and a girl pops out. A Xingese girl about my age with glassy eyes. He tells her to sit down and then cooks and feeds her meat. Then he just puts her back inside the flask. What in the World??? We go back further and further. There are a lot of recordings of feeding this girl, always meat and only meat. A few recordings show her casting spells, the forms are strange but the results look normal. They run probes over her and even stick one in her once. There is one recording that shows the mana glass, and she’s just like me, full to the brim with mana. The flask isn’t down here, and it wasn’t with the stuff we took, either. The three dead men and Alice are the only ones on the recordings. Klein never comes down.

Alice. Klein. Maribeth!

We race home. Klein is unconscious on the floor. One of the rooms is painted in blood. Alice and Maribeth are both gone! I run around the mansion, calling for her. She Has to be here! She Has to!

I vaguely hear Gerhardt waking up Klein and demanding to know what happened. The ninjas came. Into our House!

Dalish tells him what we found, but he doesn’t believe us. He casts a spell on Dalish, but Dalish tells him the story again. Klein collapses on the floor again. Gerhardt tries to message Maribeth, but nothing happens. We move the unconscious Klein into the living room and try to decide what to do next.

Butchers and Blood in South Brooklyn

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Klyce, Maribeth, and Dalish round the rest of us up for a trip to South Brooklyn to check out the Butcher shop our murder victim bought all the meat and blood at. Eustace says Tim is his best customer, buys about that much every couple of months for the last year and a half. He says Tim seemed fine last time he saw him, just a couple days ago for that order.

Next we head to the bank on “Tim’s” checks. Remy heads in and asks for the manager. Alice doesn’t work here, but the manager recognizes Artimeous’ name, but tries to push us off to the hall of records. Remy is insistent and eventually gets the manager to tell him how often Artimeous gets paid and for how long, that same year and a half.

We take a break to get some lunch and ask the Xingese waiter if he can knows anyone who can translate the note we found. He offers to take a look, but when we show him, says it is too old and he can’t decipher it. He gives us directions down to nearby dojo and says there’s a man who might be able to help. We ask after Tim, and he says he eats here often, and even brings friends around, and speaks the local language very well.

Tim seems quite the odd man about town here, so after lunch, we split up and canvas the area, looking for anyone else he might have known. We manage to find a grocery store he frequents, furthering our idea that he must have an apartment nearby, but no real leads on where.

Gathering back up at the dojo, we head in to Lu Bai’s Martial Arts. There’s an older man teaching about ten kids our age and he tries to shoo us out. We ask if we could just wait for him, and he reluctantly leaves the kids to come see what we want. We tell him we’ve been pointed his way for translation help, and he says he will in exchange for Klyce’s help in a demonstration. Klyce agrees, and gets thrown to the ground in front of the class.

Sending the kids to spar with each other, he takes us to another room. Remy explains why we have come, and he takes a look. He says the script is in an ancient form, but the characters are unfamiliar to him. He suggests we visit an antique dealer a few blocks away. When Remy asks if he knows anyone who would leave such a note attached to a dagger in a murder victim, he says that the Triad does is not so sloppy to leave writing behind.

We head over to the shop and start browsing the wares. The shopkeep approaches and welcomes us, and Remy explains that Lu Bai send us over for help with some ancient script. She takes the paper and after a moment, walks over to a shiny old bronze statue. She holds the paper up to it, as though to a mirror and begins reading aloud. Only Remy with his spell up can understand her, but soon we all get the gist as a thunderous explosion fills the shop.

What the heck???

She explains that it was a prayer to the Gods of Thunder and Vengeance that the person slain burn in the fires of the thousand hells and woe to those who interfere. Sure…. that makes sense… Who would do something like that? Who could? She says that it could be the Children of Lightning, the woojen or something. I ask if these gods have temples here, but she says no. She doesn’t know Tim, but she could maybe get us books about the Children and their gods in about a week or so. We apologize for the explosion, but while unhappy, she mostly just shoos us out.

Enough excitement for one day, we head home, stopping by the bank for Maribeth. In the morning, Dalish and Gerhardt get up early to hit the room of forms and the Hall of Records while the rest of us sleep in, greet the sunrise, or train. Then, while they’re still filling out forms and finding records, the rest of us head out to Brooklyn again to start checking out apartment buildings for anyone that knew Tim.

Plenty of folk have seen him around, but no one claims to be his neighbor. After a short while, Remy recieves word from Gerhardt that there’s been another murder. This one in South Brooklyn and Inspector Poissant is already there. We head on over and it’s on the outer edge of Xingtown. Poissant tells us that it’s Gregory Killcannon, and he was found in his chair with a knife in his chest. A knife just like Tim’s. No forced entry here, either, the maid just found him when she came to clean. We look around and only come up with some spare mana and a Transmuter’s spellook. Maribeth manages to find some of Tim’s hair in the bathroom and a Journal under Greg’s mattress. The rest of us talk to the neighbors, but they don’t have much to say. Greg kept to himself. Would stay home for days on end, then be gone for days.

We head out to lunch at a different place, and Maribeth fills us in on the journal. Greg was excited about his new job. He said Klein was Brilliant, had vision, passion and a worthwhile goal. There were drawings of the planet with cris-crossing lines, and a section view too, with different layers labeled with heat, pressure and mana concentration. But then something happened, and he started using words like morally unconscionable and no goal is worht the sacrifice of human dignity. That’s about the time he sent word to Tim about going public.

Maybe Klein got mad and killed them both. Who is Klein? Where do they all work? It has to be around here, but we have no leads. We have to go see what Dalish and Gerhardt have dug up and Maribeth needs to go to her bank again, so we all head back to the Petals. There’s some arguing over our next steps. Remy wants to go be bait, but Klyce says the murders have been up close, personal, and in their own homes. Remy asks Dalish to speak to Rictus about the names we’ve gathered that night and we all head to rest. Remy wants to hang out in the hot tub we’ve made in our mansion, but it takes him a minute to figure out why I won’t join him. Boys! I do try to give him a bit of a lesson in fae, but we’re both a bit tired.

In the morning, we gather up while Dalish and Gerhardt go look into more records and figure out where Klein works. Once we get the address, we run nearly all the way there. The door isn’t locked on this old warehouse outside of Xingtown, so we walk on in. The walls are clean white and the floor is tiled. There’s a front desk, but no one is at it. The desk has the usual stuff, but none of it seems to see any use. We head through another door and find a large lab.

Glass topped cages on long tables. A blackboard full of sketches and equations. The illusion of a globe with the same line of mana. Over in the corner is a blond woman, rummaging around. Alice? Yes, hi! Where’s Harden Klein? Well, he just left to go to your office, Malakan died last night. We told him to stay here, but he went home. Alice sends a message to get Klein to come back, and Klyce and Maribeth get Malakan’s address and head out to meet with Poissant. The rest of us ask Alice about what’s going on here, and what specialities everyone has. She called out to someone named Francine to join us, and then the lights went out.

Alchemy, Religion, and Murder

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It got quiet after we became heroes of the city. Well, magically speaking, at least. We had time to go back to our studies for a little while. Dalish finished up our paperwork and we could breathe new air every morning. It was refreshing to not explode every hour. That was such a strange experience. And meeting a Goddess? Not that Remy believes it, not yet, anyway. I am learning more each week, going to Sunday services, and watching the sun rise and set each day. It’s peaceful and nice.

The magocracy can’t get enough of us, though. All these political mages come banging at our door. Join our party, no ours, we’ll give you access to power, to spells, we can fix the world, we can fix everything. UGH! I’m just thirteen, and I could care less about all their agendas, or their power, or their stupid spell books that I can’t use. No way I’m going to be a figurehead. Not for my family, not for them.

I did get to work on my alchemy lessons a little. With Gerhardt’s help, I figured out how to make a healing potion! I’m so excited, but they do take a while to make, but at least we can still get supplies at the school, when we have time to go back there. Dalish still has to be there, working with Rictus. Oh man, I’m so glad I can’t do that type of magic!

After a few days, Remy gets over himself enough to ask me for a conversation. He sorta apologizes, but says he still isn’t sure about the Dawnmother’s intentions, or the real cause of the old war. He wants me to try and teach him the fae language, and go with him back to the forest to see if the fae will talk to him. He wants to know what they think about the old war. And he doesn’t want me to tell the others. Not yet. I tell him that we can’t go walking into the forest alone, what if we get killed? We have to tell them we’re going at least. I’m also not so sure about teaching him the language, I don’t even know how I know it, but I’ll give it a go when we have time. After that conversation, though, he fell deep into his magical studies, working on that wierd blade of his.

Klyce wanted to go back to school and find another spell or two. Everyone babbles on about flying, polymorph, fire shield, or hallucinatory terrain as we go. Once there, we decide to take a closer look at the courtyard between the buildings. Maribeth notices that there are different species of grass in certain spots, so I lift her up to get a better look.

She says the grasses form runes all across the courtyard. She copies them down and then highlights them with little sparkling lights so the boys can see. Klyce climbs up the main hall to take a look, and notices they’re from the transformation school and seem to have something to do with acceleration. So, he climbs down and walks them in order and a spell called Plant Growth appeared for him to write down.

Once they all get it down, they continue to look around. The sidewalks seem oddly uniform, but they can’t get anything from them. There’s a big tree in the corner, and when they start investigating, they find abjuration, necormancy, and a very odd geometric design to the limbs. Eventually, Dalish casts Identify, and discovers it is the Keystone for the school’s protective magics.

Walking around the area, they notice the benches have equations, or parts of equations, that seem similar to the tree’s design. They walk out the patterns and find a glyph on the theatre’s wall. It seems to be a glyph of warding against unauthorized folk. We try to find other ones around the other buildings, but this seems to be the only one that matches the pattern. Frustrated, we pack it in for the day.

A couple weeks later, Remy calls us all together to have a party. Gerhardt finished his potion of longevity, and Remy is back down another ten years. He looks like Maribeth’s age, now, and we go out to celebrate in the Petals. It was a lovely evening, and we all got to relax and talk about nonsense.

The next morning, however, things got back to our normal. The floating pool up at the 30-something floor was bright crimson in the dawn light.

Maribeth tells the doorman, who notifies a constable. We volunteer, as official investigators, to go take a look while he waits for them. Once he recognizes us, he gives us a key and Maribeth and Remy head up while I go fetch everyone else. By the time we all get up there, Maribeth is going through the dead man’s mail and Remy is studying the body with a knife in its back. Dalish uses magic to turn the corpse over, but there are no other wounds. The knife has weird magic, an octagonal handguard, intricate wrappings, and a small tag attached to the pommel. Dalish tries to understand the writing on it, but it’s some sort of code.

Maribeth says that, according to his mail, the dead man is a researcher, and someone he worked with was very concerned about what they were researching. Saying they had gone too far, and it was affecting lives. He was planning on coming forward and hoped Artemious would, too. That one was signed Killcannon. She said there was also a butcher receipt for beef, pig, pig’s blood, and organ meat. Way more than a man living alone would need.

Just as Remy is suggesting that maybe this isn’t our concern, Inspector Poissant arrives, and suggests we take point. The writing on the tag is Chinese, and they live in the south end of Brooklyn. The butcher shop is also down there. We suggest that he takes over the scene, as his people are much better at crime scene investigation, and we would head off on the leads. He agrees and we head to work.

When we ask at reception for Killcannon, the receptionist says he’s not on record there, and neither is Artemious Finch. There are two other Finch men here, though: Daniel in Records, and Uriah in the Hall of War. She directs us to those departments and we head up. Maribeth, Dalish, and Klyce head for the Hall of Records and Remy, Gerhardt, and I head to the War Department.