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The night after the battle at Axis Island, for the first time in ages, Alice gets a full night's sleep, her feet burning from the dances, drunk on wine and war. Just like those tormented artists who can only rest after their latest creation is complete, so she sleep peaceful and serene. Battle is her art.
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Life in Risur goes on for everyone after Axis Island, for Alice as well. Her nightmares get somehow less frequent, although hardly a week goes by without her waking up startled, feeling the searing explosion on her back. But an unexpected help comes from an unlikely source, in the person of her niece Sara. While visiting her brother and gingerly holding the toddler in her arm, Alice felt a weird warmth in her chest, a fire as fierce as her devotion to Risur, but mellow rather than sharp.
She's what I'm fighting for. She's what's worth fighting for. The future of this country, and blood of my blood. I'll likely never have children, but I can protect her. Wage war, that she may live in peace.
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As Delft enters the room, Alice is lying down on her chair, her copy of the treaty Ellena is avidly reading lying on the desk. "...it's effective in a duel, I'm not denying it, but I think it's pointless in a real fight. You don't go for the clean cut in a scuffle, you try to stab them before they stab you. Or shoot you. Or- Oh, Hello, Assistant Chief Inspector."
--
She chuckles quietly at his joke about half of the victim being in their jurisdiction, as grim as the humour is.
"As Ellena said, should we accept it if- when they stonewall us and try to work with what we have got?"
Also, forty feet? No way someone can jump that far. Was she thrown?
A Pardwight pupil, Andrew started working as a surgeon in the largest city hospital right off the bat, and he has only recently finished paying off his massive student debt from the university. Three years ago he married his long-standing girlfriend Clara Sunwright, (28) and last year she gave birth to a girl named Sara.
Andrew and Alice had grown somewhat distant since her return from the war, but have been spending some more time together since the Coaltongue incident.
She slapped him across the face for his insolence, and Colin just asked again, holding his cheek. This time she accepted.
Since then, the two have been in an on-again, off-again relationship that has currently been on hiatus for a couple of years. Two impetuous, fiery souls, they are prone to clashes and shouting matches, although they never got violent after that first slap. None of them wants to commit, but periodically they find themselves led towards one another by some weird kind of attraction, just to break up explosively after a few months.
Colin comes from a rather well-off family, and lives off several investments, allowing him to pursue his trade as a philosopher without worrying about money, although he has managed to get two books published. He has dark blonde hair, brown eyes and a perpetual confident smile on his face.
"Field work is a bloody sight better than doing all this paperwork." the dwarf remarks in deliberate complaint. After the report, Az sighs, then says aloud but mostly to himself,"Danoran consulate? Did we not just finish a great deal of trouble with them? Though is true duchess is not duchess any longer, so that whole gulag was not Danor. Forty feet, you say? Is no small distance...could she have been thrown or flung so far out window?"
Frowning, Miselle drummed her fingers on the table. "Such a distance is not normal, no. Mayhap it has a connection to out current case..." Gale was reputed to be able to fly away, after all, and she seemed to hold a grudge against the Danorans.
If she had targeted the embassy and been too wounded to fly...well, maybe they'd be solving a case today after all.
The older sister of Miselle, and heir to the family, Beliana has effectively taken over running the household itself as her parents focus on the task of building weapons for the kingdom. She begrudges this task somewhat - as a Fitelle, she prefers to workshop to the parties of high society - but understands social standing is essential. Even now, the families position is tenuous, and if the wrong Monarch takes the throne...
Beliana and Miselle get along well, although Beliana feels Miselle has shirked some of her duties as a daughter of the House, whereas Miselle feels her position within the RHC helps the family as everyone knows the RHC are utterly loyal to the nation.
Plus they always argued about the best method of rifling...
A former naval officer of indeterminate ethnicity and possibly confused heritage, Junn runs a variety of interesting businesses that provide materials for difficult to find materials and resources. He also owns less wholesome businesses, although his reputation is such that such houses of ill repute as he owns come very highly recommended, with engaging and enthusiastic staff well compensated for their time and skill.
Junn is exceptionally skilled at keeping his enterprises just this side of legal and thus is rarely in too much trouble. Miselle ran into him on an occasion where rumour suggested he had over stepped, but it turned out to be a competitor spreading rumours. Miselle has since found Junn a very useful source of materials and information...at very reasonable rates.
Delft shrugs in response to your questions. "I'm afraid I don't know anything beyond what I just told you. I will say, though, that the Danorans have been more helpful lately. They're not exactly friendly, of course, but they're not actively working against us anymore."
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There's a carriage waiting to take you to the consulate, but even with official seals to help clear the way, the drive still takes nearly an hour. The late spring morning is warm and muggy, and a foul breeze blows a cloak of smog over the normally-clear-skied North Shore district. The street that runs past the consulate has no buildings on its opposite side, just beach, but a quartet of Flint police officers are trying to block off access to gawkers. A black coroner's carriage waits outside the gate, doors open, and its bored-looking driver sits on the slab waiting for permission to remove the body. Inside the gate, you see cleaning staff working to scrub blood and viscera off the fence.
As you pull up to the building, the officer in charge looks impatiently at his pocket watch and comes forward to meet you. "We responded to some panicked witnesses, and by the time the first of our men got here, the Danorans had taken the victim off the fence and carried her inside. But everyone had pretty much the same story. They heard gun retorts, saw the woman jump out the window, and she landed on the fence. One scoundrel apparently stole stuff off her body and ran away as she was bleeding out. The Danorans wouldn't let us inside, but I yelled at them that you'd be showing up, and they said they wouldn't get rid of the body. The guy you want to talk to is the security chief, Julian LeBrix.
"You can handle the investigation from here without my men, right? We've got better things to do than sit around for another hour while the 'special constables' drink up the hospitality of the Danorans."
Don't hit him - don't hit him...
Alice's voice drips hostility, her nostrils flare and her eyes squint.
"Drink up? I- no, you know what, Officer, we sure can manage without you just as well. Might I have your name, by the way?"
Having served with the police, Corynne takes in the officer's uniform, noting his rank.
"You should know as well as anyone that the 'scoundrel' that stole something off of the victim, could just as easily be hiding evidence or covering up something incriminating, rather than just some random opportunist. So no rather than standing around, what we need you and your men doing is canvassing the streets to find him, so that we can question him. You know these streets far better than anyone else, and we both know that a little thing like questioning the right person can break a career-making case." she says giving him a direct look.
Growing up in the same orphanage, the two girls shared a solid bond, despite their paths going in what one would consider very different directions. Akin to sisters in their companionship, Corinne’s brilliant career in law enforcement actually benefited quite a bit from the information that Sadie often came by in the course of an evening’s work, while Corinne’s friends and allies in the police force indulged her soft spot for the city’s working girls by helping to keep the area a touch safer that it would be otherwise.
Though they do not get to see each other as often as they’d like, the two women always make time to get together, not only to share stories or information, but to spend time with someone who understands them in a way most others couldn’t.
Taking the better part of two hours to talk her down, earned Corinne a commendation, and Dana’s undying friendship. Over the past few years, Dana has used her position in the Mayor’s office to get Corinne any information that might be useful, or aid her in getting past the bureaucratic red tape that often threatens to derail an investigation.
The policeman looked somewhat embarrassed. "My apologies, constables. I've had a long day, and it seems we started off on the wrong foot. Officer Alfred Bellastair, at your service. We don't have much of a description to go on regarding the thief, but maybe you'll have better luck with the crowd than my men did."
Ellena steps out of the carriage, blinking at the sudden light. It'd been years since she'd last been to the North Shore.
While the others talked to the officer, Ellena studied the Consulate in all it's imposing glory. After a moment, she stepped back into the group. "Do we want to split up, then? Have some of us canvas the crowd, and the rest go talk to the Danorans?"
His own thoughts on the disrespect shown by the attending officer voiced by the others, he turned his mind to how best to proceed from here. "Splitting up served us well to this point. Is not bad idea for now, either. Is probably also good idea for us to examine body and see if is something others missed. There may be more to learn than just cause of death."
Miselle nodded slightly. She suspected they'd want her to go in, but she wasn't sure it was wise. Her family weren't exactly well regarded in Danor, so if anyone recognized her or her name...but duty did as duty must.
Instead, she looked for the broken window - no glazier would have repaired that this fast - and for where the victim had fallen. If it was a superhuman distance, then perhaps it would shed some light on who fell, or how.
"Yes that would definitely be a good idea Az....she might have answers as to who did this to her. Corynne says quietly.
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"'S alright." Alice says gruffly at Bellastair. "But yes, you might be helpful in canvassing the crowd. Fitelle, you speak Danoran, perhaps you should go? Spooky, maybe go with her and look for the corpse? I'll look around, then catch up."
Approaching the gate, Alice closes her eyes and starts taking deep breaths, focusing on the acrid, metallic scent of blood. Concentration is hard and strenuous, but her senses get sharper. As she opens up her eyes again, her nose is keen as a hound's, and the blood stench is almost tangible.
It's easily forty feet from the broken window to the bloody fence. To the best of your knowledge, even with a running start, nobody could jump that far unaided.
You smell blood in three locations: the fence, somewhere inside the consulate, and approximately one block south of your current location. The scents in the first two locations match exactly.
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As you approach the consulate doors, a Danoran comes to meet you.
"Bonjour, constables. The name's LeBrix, Julian LeBrix. I'm chief of security here. This is a mess. I took a diplomatic post to avoid having to see blood and death anymore. It has our people shaken up - none of them ever saw war = and so I hope you can take the woman's body and go quickly. Better for everyone, I think, if the consular doesn't have to be bothered. He has more important things on his mind than a burglary. We have treaty negotiations, trade contracts, and you don't want powerful men thinking about death when they're deciding our fates, you know?
"The woman went by the name Nilasa Hume. She's been in a few times these past few months. Seemed nice enough. She brought us breakfast this morning. One of our security personnel, Braden, was dating her. She used him to case the building and must have overheard someone talking about upstairs.
"I noticed she slipped out while everyone else was eating the food she'd brought. A hunch led me upstairs, and I found her slipping gold forks and spoons into her pockets." LeBrix pulls out a small padded bag, then pulls from that a tiny ceramic egg, beautifully decorated with gems and gold. "She also had this. It's worth thousands, and we had it sitting out on display. I saw her, drew my pistol. She ran. I realized she was about to jump out the window. I thought she was trying to kill herself, so I fired and hit her in the leg. Then she jumped. Flew straight through the glass. Now I'm thinking she's about to escape, so I reload and shoot her in the back. That's when she fell.
"That all happened within the consulate grounds. I'm within my rights to have taken these actions, although I wish I hadn't had to."
By this time, you've entered the building. One of the secretaries watches as you come in, but she gets back to work when LeBrix tosses a sidelong look at her. He takes you down a hall and stops outside a storage room. "We're all professionals here. It would help me if you can take the body and leave quickly." Inside the storage room, you see a body covered in a bloody white cloth. A man (presumably Braden) sits in a chair beside it, stunned and grieving.
Ellena went with the group heading into the consulate - she didn't know the North Shore well enough to be helpful, and she had a certain morbid curiosity for watching Corynne work. All that faded, though when she saw the body on the slab and the grief-stricken guard. While the chief of security was explaining things, she leaned close to Corynne and whispered, "Is... what you do... at all time sensitive? He shouldn't have to see this."
"It is but we're still in time. Perhaps we should suggest he step out while we inspect her body." Corynne suggests, familiar with the pain of those left behind in scenarios like this one.
"Alright." Ellena looks to the chief of security, now that he's finished talking, and steps forward a little nervously. "Sir, would it be possible for us to see the room she jumped from? And - perhaps Mr. Braden could accompany us, and we can ask him some questions please?"
"Go. I'll catch up soon. Officer Bellastair, if you could ask any witness for a description of the scoundrel. I'll check on a lead and be back in a moment."
The corpse and the fence are obvious. This third bleeding might just be a dead track, someone who cut themselves with a knife or a butcher shop, but one never knows. Could be some kind of injury related to the woman. And it will keep me away from those cheesemongers.
Alice hurries toward the third source of blood scent, moving swiftly through the streets of North Shore.
"Be safe." Az states simply as Alice declares her intention to check up on another lead; the dwarf, meanwhile, stays with the others. "Yes, is important for us to see room, as well. Has body been moved or tampered with at all? Does she still have jeweled egg and other items on her or were those taken back?" he adds; as almost an after thought, he muses aloud,"Is just feeling like strange place to try snatch-and-grab..."
The scent leads you to an alley.
LeBrix gives you a brisk nod. "Of course, constables. Right this way...." He leads Ellena down the hall to a gallery . There, you see a broken window looking out over the grounds. Below, staff are still working to remove the blood splatter on the fence. Even with a height advantage, it's obvious that nobody could jump that far unaided.
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Braden's pretty shaken up and doesn't know much. That morning, around 9am, his girlfriend came in with a box of brigadiero chocolates for the staff. She set them out and made some coffee. Next thing he knew, there was a *crash* from upstairs and some gunshots. Now his girlfriend's dead, and he has no idea why.
After looking over the room for a few moments, Az notices a conspicuous lack of dust along several inches of a rug on the floor, as if it had recently been shifted over; upon throwing the rug over, the bloodstain on the floor beneath is revealed to the group.
After everyone leaves, Corynne moves forward, stranding over the girl’s body. Taking hold of the pendant around her neck, she calls upon her power, the stone beginning to pulse with an eerie ethereal light as she traces the pattern of a summoning circle in the center of the woman’s chest, thinning the barrier between the spirit world and the material one, her breath misting as the air around her grows cold, calling forth the recently departed spirit.
The room fills with whispers, barely decipherable protests of other souls, peering through a window still locked to them.
How did my nose become so keen? The smell of the alley is almost overwhelming, but if there's one scent Alice is familiar with, it's blood. She kneels next to the scrap of paper, reads and pockets it. Kneeling on the blood clot, she looks at it, taking in again the characteristic scent, before picking it up with a handkerchief and heading back.
"So, Officer, did you have any luck with a description?" she asks Bellastair, while gazing upon the crowd. The culprit has likely turned tail, but you never know.
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Based on the appearance of Nilasa's spirit, you realize that she's a follower of Seedism with some Vekesh tendencies. Knowing that should help you tailor your questions to increase the odds that she'll give you helpful answers.
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"Older man with a goatee. He came from inside the consulate, went up to the dying woman and was handed a bundle of papers and folders. She whispered something to him before she died, and he yanked a yellow pendant and necklace off her neck before running away down that alley you just came from."
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Ellena joins Az at the bloodstain, starting to wish she hadn't dozed off quite so often in Humanoid Anatomy. Still, she'd spent enough time cleaning the salle to know what this looked like. "Someone cut her - she wasn't shot." she whispers, before rising. "Mr. LeBrix, do you have a list of what was stolen? Someone looted the body before the police arrived; it would help us to know what to look for. Speaking of -" she turned to Braden, "Did you, er, that is... do you know where she lived? We'll need to search her home."
"Nilasa, did you willfully and without coercion, take your own life?" Corynne asks, her voice filled with compassion, understanding the likely motives of one who followed Nilasa's chosen patrons.
Miselle decided to talk to the staff. Hopefully a soothing tone and Danoran would help get any useful information out of them.
"No. I was attacked."
Nilasa lived and worked at "Sechim's Alkahest & Etchings" . She spent a lot of her free time at the "Thinking Man's Tavern" in Bosum Strand.
The staff are willing to talk to you but seem strangely upbeat considering the death happened a mere two hours ago. A secretary named Tia Jedeau remembers Nilasa speaking with a foreign doctor who'd had an appointment regarding a travel visa. Nobody else remembers much, unfortunately, as they were too busy eating the chocolates Nilasa had brought them.
"Who attacked you?"
They'll probably be fine on their own for a while.
"Alright, Bellastair, good job. We'll take it from here. Dismissed."
Moving with a martial gait, Alice approaches the crowd of dawdlers and busybodies, grabbing a notepad and a fountain pen. "I'm Constable Kildare, RHC! Lend me your ear, folks! Anyone who's got information on the case, the victim or the old man with who was seen skulking around, please come forth! All the others, there's no longer anything of interest to see around here!"
"The shadow man. I don't know his name."
There are a lot of people in the crowd, and everyone wants to share what they saw, so it takes a while to get things settled down. You get your first bit of solid information from a trio of glaziers fortunate enough to walk by just as the window was shattered. The woman crashed out the window, hit the fence, and then there were two gunshots, a few seconds apart. When she jumped, she had her arms covering her face, like to shield herself from the glass.
Miselle raised an eyebrow at the odd attitude. The people here might be upbeat if it was just a random thief, but it seemed like the girl was known to at least some of them. It seemed off.
She also took a look at the chocolates provided.
Az shoots a glance over to Ellena. "Well, two more places to check out, but I am thinking is bad idea to go alone. Maybe even is bad idea to go in pairs. We need to regroup and decide what next step is."
There are still a few uneaten brigadieros left in the box. According to the inkstamp on the lid, they came from the Thinking Man's Tavern.
Miselle noted the name down for later. It might be useful to find out more about the victim.
Alice writes the new information on her notepad. "So the shots were fired after she had hit the fence, right? Thank you for your time, and for doing your duty towards Risur." This is precious info. I'd better keep on it. The others should be alright in the meantime.
"Does someone some new info to add?" she shouts over the crowd's voices.
A delivery driver has a tidbit of information, but it sounds pretty odd. Apparently, he saw someone up in the window after Nilasa fell, but he looked like he was completely black, except for something shiny - perhaps a gun. A moment later, he had vanished.
"Agreed. Lets go see how Miselle and Corynne are doing.
"Why would someone seek to end your life?" Corynne asks with a tone of finality.
"I don't know." As she finishes her sentence, Nilasa's spirit fades away.
"Rest well." Sighing softly Corynne begins to inspect the body in detail.
Ellena steps back into the basement just in time to see Nilasa's spirit fade away. "Did she tell you anything?"
Nilasa's body has glass wounds on her arms, two fence punctures to her abdomen, gunshots to her back left thigh and shoulder, and an unusual scalp wound likely caused by necrotic energy. Based on the way the blood has pooled, you can determine that the gunshots came from above and are more recent than the fence wounds.
In Nilasa's pockets, you find a bail certificate from the Parity Lake police station. Apparently, she'd been picked up in a recent contraband raid, and her bail was paid by a "Heward Sechim." You also find an empty potion vial in Nilasa's top. There's a drop or two left inside, and by the coloration, you believe it to be a potion of invisibility - illegal to carry without the proper permit. There's enough left in the vial to run an analysis of any notable ingredients if you spend some time in the RHC lab.
After scanning for any magical auras, you can tell that, while Nilasa is not a spellcaster, she's been affected by several different spells. Unfortunately, , the auras are too jumbled for you to piece together.
"Yeah, definitely a homicide." Corynne answers as she continues her study of Nilasa's body and personal effect. "She referred to her killer as the 'Shadow Man' for what that's worth,but doesn't know why she was murdered. Either the killer or someone assisting them went out of their way to obscure things. She bled out from the puncture wounds of the fence, the gunshots happened after she was already impaled, possibly after she was already dead, and someone jumping to commit suicide doesn't have defensive wounds on their forearms from going through the glass. She was desperately trying to get away from somebody."
Frowning in frustration she mutters a quiet curse. "Her body's under the effects of quite a few spells but I can't sort out which. I'll need to run this through the lab....invisibility potion...The specific ingredients might lead us to a source at least."
"She, or someone else, was cut badly upstairs - we found the bloodsplatter. How do we want to bring this up with the consulate?"
"Politicians have a habit of muddying investigations if they think it would be a problem." Corynne replies with a frown."It might be easier to just let them believe their story checks out until we can get back to HQ and get any necessary warrants."
"We also want to look into this 'Heward Sechim' who apparently paid her bail, for a contraband arrest. If she had the certificate on her, it couldn't have been more than a day or two ago."
"I am thinking is right. Also, if someone at consulate is involved somehow, we should keep our digging quiet. As quiet as possible, anyway. We know she worked at Parity Lake, in Sechim's Alkahest & Etchings factory. We know, too, she spent much time at Thinking Man's Tavern in the Strand. I am thinking either would be good to check out after Sechim. We know nothing of this woman. We should find out of she was type of person to do something like this from people who knew her."
Returning to the others, Miselle informed them, "The staff have been drugged. Apparently, the treats used to do it were acquired from the Thinking Man Tavern."
"Alright. I'm just a little worried about them getting their story together while we wait - they don't have to let us in the door if we come back. But if you guys think it's best..."
"Drugged? With treats? Are any of them left? We should try to find out what the drug they used was."
Miselle held up the candies. "Nothing lethal. They seem to...simply not care. Almost euphoric, despite the situation. It was probably meant to provide a distraction. If the staff were too busy with the candies to care about other things..."