A sigh escaped Victor as he looked at the sleeping form of Terri "Ya have to admit not everyone could sleep on their feet" He gave half a smile as he walked in the direction of the petit blond and put his arm under hers and began helping her back to her bed.
"Come on oh lazy star of the morning, I am sure yer audience wouldn't mind if ya caught some more hours of sleep"
"Whuzat? Victor," she asks as Victor guides her up the stairs.
Tolenn nods a Wednesday, "We'd best get rested and ready. Given our history with the Marshall, she's more than likely to request we put ourselves in danger once again."
She watches Victor lead Terri back upstairs, a small smile on her face.
Noticing that Wednesday has noticed, she gives him a wry smile of his own, then shrugs and makes her way back to her room.
There she prepares for the day and then leaves the house for some errands...
As you enter Citadel Volshyenek, it seems that the guard compliment on duty is a skeleton of its normal size even during the day. Being familiar with your presence in and about the fortress, the guards wave you through, leaving you to make your way to Kroft's office on your own.
Field Marshall Kroft's offices are open with her busy at her desk pouring over some paperwork. Several coffee-stained mugs are scattered about along with a few plates of food scraps. She waves you in and indicates the benches across from her desk.
"Come in. I trust you are well-rested after your ordeals with the hostel? You'll be happy to know that, in conjunction with the city's temples, we have put the surviving prisoners in safe and comfortable accommodations. The prisoners who are immune to the blood veil are cooperating--willingly--with our efforts to find a cure. The First Bank of Abadar have even suspended their own rules and are providing then with care without direct compensation. That must be a first."
"It always amazes me that it takes the absolute worst to bring out the best in people." Amira says shaking her head. "But whatever the reason it's still good to hear."
Although being woken up for less-than ideal reasons Wednesday does manage to return Tolenn's warm gesture when she smiles at him.
"I guess the Queen does pay better," Wednesday muses on noticing the lack of women at the citadel.
Upon entering the office he all but ignores Croft as he waits for everyone else to enter.
Cautious is what Victor appeared to be as they neared the the citadel. Once he was at the door, he took a long a breath before enter and didn't exhale till many moments later, almost like he forgot that it was just as important to let the air exit his lungs as well. Like a wild beast walking in unfamiliar territory, Victor turned his head from each new guard they passed by and kept to the very middle of the group, as if his companions were camouflage he could hide behind.
The walk to Kroft's office seemed to take forever, and when he was finally there Victor entered last and stood against the right wall closest to the door. His hands were hidden under his pockets and his gaze betrayed no emotions and was directed away from their host.
"Come in. I trust you are well-rested after your ordeals with the hostel? You'll be happy to know that, in conjunction with the city's temples, we have put the surviving prisoners in safe and comfortable accommodations. The prisoners who are immune to the blood veil are cooperating--willingly--with our efforts to find a cure. The First Bank of Abadar have even suspended their own rules and are providing then with care without direct compensation. That must be a first."
"So every one is pitching in to help those who need it" Victor looked about the office with an ambivalent air floating on his tone "I know that yer errand boy didn't call us here just so ya could tell us how wonderful everything is going, if that were the case I'd be a much happier man"
That's odd. I was sure there were a lot more women in the guard than this, Terri thinks to herself as they walk into the citadel.
===
Terri gives Victor a pinch on the arm. Friend or no, there are some things she didn't like about him. The tone of voice he often took was one of those things.
"What Victor means to say is that he believes there's some trouble brewing, right," she says with a slightly fixed smile as she tries to salvage the situation a little.
Victor, you may be a very nice and interesting man, but you really could learn to be more diplomatic.
Tolenn nods in greeting to the guards that allow their passage to see Croft.
Upon hearing the Marshall's news, she smiles happily, ignoring the others more cynical responses, smiling a little wider at Terri's admonition to Victor "That is glad news, indeed, Marshall. We all must do what we can to eradicate this plague. What wouly you have of us?"
"There may be some trouble brewing, exactly how much we do not yet know. With all the activity around the hostel, particularly from the temples, rumors have been spreading like wildfire that a cure has been found. It hasn't yet, but the rumors themselves aren't the problem."
"Yesterday, a perfume shop called Lavender started selling something they call a cure. My guess is it's snake oil, but I can't rule out the possibility that the owner of the shop, Vendra Loaggri, has a connection to the Urgathoa cult and an inside track on either a cure or another way of keeping the disease going. When my guards went there yesterday, the crowd nearly rioted, so I need someone to take a less official approach."
"If you can, find out what she's selling. I will give you a warrant to arrest her if what she is selling isn't a legitimate cure. And in the unlikely event it is a cure, I want to know the source."
"So we're knocking over a perfume shop?" Wednesday asks incredulously.
... does Tolenn wear perfume? Terri probably does, I might ask...
The pinch he received delivered the message pretty clearly. If it was anyone else he wouldn't have relented, but Terri has dug deeper than most into his heart and deep down beyond the annoyance and bias he had against the guards he knew that she had the right of it...he just didn't have to like it.
"There may be some trouble brewing, exactly how much we do not yet know. With all the activity around the hostel, particularly from the temples, rumors have been spreading like wildfire that a cure has been found. It hasn't yet, but the rumors themselves aren't the problem."
"Yesterday, a perfume shop called Lavender started selling something they call a cure. My guess is it's snake oil, but I can't rule out the possibility that the owner of the shop, Vendra Loaggri, has a connection to the Urgathoa cult and an inside track on either a cure or another way of keeping the disease going. When my guards went there yesterday, the crowd nearly rioted, so I need someone to take a less official approach."
"If you can, find out what she's selling. I will give you a warrant to arrest her if what she is selling isn't a legitimate cure. And in the unlikely event it is a cure, I want to know the source."
Sounds like someone with no morals out to make gold. Plenty of them in Korvosa, but she's right it is worth investigating, if nothing else I can make them pay for swindling those suffering from the plague Victor's gaze turned towards the door, and he let out a short and barely audible exhale.
"Perfume." Cassandra muses. "Remember, Ami? That perfume seller who was hiding drugs in her bottles? The scent was enough to through off blood hounds and no one thought twice about someone paying a large amount for such a small item."
"Yeah until something struck you as odd about it," Amira replies remembering Cass' genius. " Turns out perfume is a good way to cover up a whole lot of things that stink. We'll look into it. If she's legitimate, we'll bring her in safely, if she's fleecing the victims, she'll come in in chains......and if she's actually working with them to spread it.....we'll try to bring her in alive."
"She was pricing entirely wrong for lotus scent." Cassandra says with a shrug. It can be easy to forget that Cassandra's parents bought their noble title through clever merchanting.
"For her sake, I hope she has found a cure, otherwise, this could get ugly," Terri says with a sad expression on her face. The young priestess stays quiet for a moment, then shakes her head.
"Is there anything else you found out about this Vendra? Does she have any employees? Anything strange going on around the shop?"
"Vendra and her Lavender shop came to our attention once before. A few years ago, she apparently found a nest of imps and thought it would be a good idea to run a promotion. She posted a big "Free Imp with Every Purchase" sign and tried giving them away. Let's just say it didn't work as she planned. She was fined for disturbing the peace and the property damage her neighbors suffered."
"She's not exactly high on our list of threats to the city, normally, but she has enough of a history that I am skeptical of her motives. And with the crowds that are starting to congregate for his 'cure', I'm worried about a more serious incident."
"That was her," Terri says mouth agape. She'd nearly forgotten about the time she and Trinia had stumbled upon the perfume shop, and until Kroft had mentioned the Free Imp promotion, she'd forgotten it's name as well. As hard as she tried, Terri couldn't keep the dull red of embarrassment from her cheeks.
"Well, I doubt she remembers me, and I'll happily look into this. If it is a cure (which I doubt) the churches and guard need the recipe. If it isn't, then woe be unto Vendra," Terri says, her remembered humiliation gone as her emerald eyes glittered with the banked fires of her righteous fury.
"Indeed, false hope generates the kind of fear and hate the enemies of Korvosa so greatly desire. As it seems we're all in agreement..." Tolenn says looking about at her friends.
Amira nods ready to set out as soon as everyone had asked any questions they had of Croft.
Wednesday finally nods his head once Tolenn looks at him.
Victor gives a silent nod then turns his vision towards the door they came through once more.
Cassandra doesn't wait.
"See you there!" Cassandra announces before she leaps out the door. From there, she will rooftop run all the way to the perfume store. She won't enter but wait on the roof across the street, watching the shop until the others arrive.
Amira makes no effort to hide the smile that creeps across her lips as Cassandra is simply and apologetically, Cassandra.
Lavender is nestled within the Heights neighborhood of Korvosa, less than a block away from the Acadamae (which probably has something to do with Vendra Loaggri finding a nest of imps a few years back) and it isn't hard to find with its distinctive amethyst-colored windows. There's a line of customers extending out the front of the shop and down the street - four blocks down the street. In the queue there are some people who seem reasonably healthy and others who exhibit the coughing and blistered symptoms of the blood veil. The few other people about on the streets in this well-to-do district are giving the queue a wide berth.
Currently, the situation seems reasonably peaceful. At the front of the queue, or at least where it enters the shop, a thickly built, well-dressed man wearing a purple cravat stands watch over the line. Next to him stands a sandwich board that says "Lavender's Luxuriant Liniment - 2 gold".
"So do you want to just walk in or let Victor open his mouth and convince him they're long lost brothers?" Wednesday flatly asks upon seeing the crowd.
We'll check the perimiter of the building from up top and get an overview. Any windows, other possible entrancesm things like that and them report what we find." Amira says before taking to the rooftops and finding Cassandra.
Terri looks at Wednesday with a look of mild surprise on her face, but she answers quickly enough to keep it from being awkward.
"No, not at all. What's on your mind?"
"What if two of us were to pose customers? That would let us get into the shop and see if anything's amiss," Terri suggests, "I could do it, but I'm not sure who else could."
She shrugs an apology at the others. She doesn't know them quite well enough to be able to know who'd be good enough at playing the roles she had in mind, though a part of her hopes that Victor could turn his thespian talents to playing someone who was more debonair.
"S'pose that could work, but you'd still have to wait in line."
"Not if we are customers he'll want to please" Victor looked down on himself and pulled at his own vest by one of its upper edges "I could play the noble but my cloths can't, so maybe a noble's personal errand boy"
Victor looks to Terri and gives her half a smile "And since ya are so eager to get into this little play, why don't we have ya play the noble's bodyguard? He'd be more likely to believe that with yer armor" Following his words the sorcerer walked a little closer to the blond.
"Of course every good lie has to have some truth in it" He held out his hand and waited to see if she'd agree to his proposition.
Tolenn smiles as the other prepare their deception, "I'll leave the subterfuge to you. As Amira and Cassandra have the higher vantage, I will approach from the rear and see what I find."
The building the shop is in is a 2-story shop/housing complex. There are typically apartments on the second floor and in back behind boutique-style shops like Lavender. The front door offers access to the apartments as well as the door to the shop. The roof is moderately pitched and covered with red terra cotta tiles. Stairs offer access to the second floor in the hall just past the door to Lavender as well as right next to the storefront window.
From their vantage point on the roof, there doesn't actually appear to be any easy access from the rear (fire codes not being much of a thing in Korvosa). There are no windows in that direction, for example. All the windows point out the front of the building - including shops on the ground floor and apartments above (generally shuttered).
The view in the front window shows Vendra greeting customers and otherwise directing them about while two young women clerks handle the transactions with customers from behind a counter. There are two more husky but well-dressed guards in the main shop.
"Well, come on. Let's see what we can find out." Cassandra leaps across to the roof of the perfume shop.
The grace with which Cassandra leaps across the distance is breathtaking, for some reason even more so than usual. Her thoughts wandering, Amira's own leap is less than her usual finesse, though still up to the task.
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Seeing that an approach from the rear would be impossible, Tolenn instead walks around the queue of hopefulls had leans against the shoppe wall at the bottom of the stairs.
Moving across the roof, Amira scans for any form of access to the inside of the building.
Waiting for the two duos to work their magic Wednesday simply follows after Tolenn, being as nonchalant and inconspicuous as a man with an oversized grotesque scythe strapped to his back can be.
Victor pulled on the hems of his shirt, straightened his vest, made a few adjustments to his hair and walked to what could possibly be his next charade.
"Morning sir, I'm here on behalf of...people who could really make yer life and the life of the owner of the shop much better, but if they don't get the cure ya have been selling soon they won't be around to do ya that favor" Victor had a small and neutral smile on his face, his eyes showing nothing clear of intent or desire.
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The customers standing in line make way for Tolenn to stand against the wall in the entryway and they especially make way for Wednesday and his freaky scythe. One old lady swoons in a faint for fear some grim reaper has come for her soul. That draws a few dirty looks Wednesday's way.
The guard at the door looks Victor up and down as if assessing him. "Cure's 2 gold per dose and the end of the line's that way," he says, gesturing toward the end of the line 4 blocks away. But he also raises an eyebrow and flexes his hand in the universal sign of "I'm open for bribes".
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Note to self: Scythe works great as people repellent. Need to ask Victor if he knows where to find a nice dark cloak.
"The Lady of the Pale must be keeping an eye out..." Wednesday says loudly and seemingly offhandedly without returning any of the looks.
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He's either cynical, smart or has no ambition Victor's eyes blinked a couple of times, like he did not understand the gesture but then quickly brought his hand to his forehead as if he remembered something "Oh of course, of course" He said in a hushed tone.
"How much would be satisfactory?"
"Time for some breaking and entering. Well, entering." Cassandra says to her partner before making her way down and into the building. She'll let Amira take the lead inside, however, as they search for the stairs.
Flashing her partner a quick smile, Amira drops down to the second floor ledge, moving forward to give Cassandra room to follow as she scans the hallway. Looking and listening for signs of activity.
The guard outside mutters in a low voice to keep the line in general from hearing him, "Fifty a dose. But we don't want no one knowing you got pref'rential treatment or everyone'll want it."
Meanwhile, upstairs amid the apartments, activity is low. Windows are shuttered against the plague with garlands of flowers and garlic and other folk-remedies around them to ward off the sickness. Cassandra and Amira spot someone down the hall by an apartment door. They are carrying a shopping basket and appear to be fumbling for some keys.
Amira's sharp perceptions can tell here there are people in many of these apartments, but they seem to be disengaged from the city around them, subdued, hiding behind their walls and praying to remain healthy.
"I feel we are not communicating well here...this is what I need" Victor looked the man over as if he was judging a piece of produce than his smile disappeared "I am going to pay ya yer fifty, but I need to talk to the person in charge because being an errand boy of a noble means that I should at least discuss this with someone who bloody knows what they are doing and should ya fail to do that" The sorcerer makes a few gestures with his hand causing his shadow to elongate in a zigzagging manner, climb up a near by building.
From the shadow appeared an archer clothed in all black with his bow and arrow trained on the guard "I'll have my friend here run ya through with enough arrows to make this whole thing unnecessary" Victor pointed towards his shadowy ally, the illusion pulled the string of it's bow a little further back in response "We clear on that lad?"