<"The 'we' was rhetorical. A gentleman never asks a lady to do that sort of labor."> Titus gestured with one hand, and the fire-dousing sandbags lifted into the air and moved at a steady pace over to the fire, where they dropped down to let the fire burn through the fabric and quickly snuff out.
Katherine rolled her eyes. "I'm reasonably sure the kind of complex mathematics that would be required to move those are better served in ways that don't render ones mind into something more moth-eaten. Also, I'm reasonably sure we aren't supposed to use magic in front of others if they aren't in on it." She was confused as to why the man hadn't noticed the mention of the Laundry earlier, but it was clear he was one of the ones that the large woman was looking for as well.
Waste of magical ability or not, the sandbag spills onto the burning carbonized remains, extinguishing most of the fire. A few rogue flames are easily put down.
<"And you clearly are in on it, so there's no problem."> Titus answered cheerfully. <"I don't suppose you know anyone named Elias around here?">
"But you didn't know that," Katherine said, "You suspected." She really hoped the man didn't get someone else killed with that. "I'm afraid I don't know an Elias, but there was a man in the attic with some kind of clockwork magic. He might know more, but seemed rather aggressive. Now, I'm here because my superiors told me to check the city and the hideous glow of magic from this place caught my eye. As for yourselves?"
Richard smiles genially and says in German, "You are Herr Kubíček I presume? I have been looking for fisheries in the area, and this one was the next on my list."
"Elias? Nein." The fearsome woman switched to English "Me? I needed help with a job. I found out something arcane happened here, and made top speed. I figured in this city a fight amongst practitioners leaves only two real sides, and I was looking to hire one of them."
She sighs and looks up towards the attic. "Now, while this is a wonderful place to chat, maybe we should hurry up and leave? Chat later? First, though, I want to find out more about the man in the attic - it would make sense he is aggressive if he was just involved in this. If someone can lift the trapdoor, I'll head up."
Titus considered that for a moment. "How heavy a trapdoor is it? Any locks?" he inquired, confident in his ability to lift any reasonable weight. He wasn't exactly buff, but unless it was made of way too much solid metal or something...
Katherine led the others back to the trapdoor, explaining, "It's light enough for me to move, but the gentleman atop was less than cordial." She made no move to climb up herself, of course.
The fearsome woman shrugs "As you've no doubt guessed, this is a projection. I'll come back with information if he kills me. Password is 'sandbags'."
You faintly hear a voice under the trapdoor. It sounds female, and not speaking German.
"I'm sorry, sir" replies the clerk in a decent, if accented, German, "Herr Kubíček is out on a commission. However, if you plan to buy our products, I have the records and can give you an estimate myself."
As they closed in on the trapdoor, Titus gestured to knock it open with telekinetic force - as long as the aggressive-looking woman barreled through right after, it was unlikely anyone would notice the difference, and he preferred to engage potential threats at range.
Moving with almost unnatural speed up the ladder, the Fearsome looking woman rushed ahead. "Wait!" she cried, as she pushed up through the now open trapdoor.
The trapdoor opens, and a woman appears out of it, crying out "Wait!" She's nearly seven feet tall and with enough scars to suggest a career in violence - including a massive one across her face.
As the newcomer distracts the clerk, Leo quietly lets the attention drift off him before slipping out of the room and down the hall. He had snuck through more terrifyingly complex and well guarded structures than this fishery in the past. Escaping through a side corridor and making his way out to the truck would be nothing in comparison. A lack of keys would be an issue but Leo had always had a mind for mechanisms and the Brits had seen fit to further train his proclivities into a proper talent.
Richard nods and says, again in German, ”I simply wanted to get a lay of the land. I may come back to follow up further. Danke schoen.” With that, he walks outside and waits for Leo to exit.
Sighting down the barrel of his pistol, Tomasz does hold his fire - for the moment. "It should be known, enough explosives I still have to end the lives of you and your friends below. Speak. If anything below your face moves, I will shoot."
"Calm down!" The Fearsome woman calls out, hands up, eyes down and apparently doing her level best not to look threatening. "I'd say there's about a reasonable chance we're affiliates!"
"Can we just talk for a moment?" she shrugs "Even if you are going to shoot me, I'd think you'd want to try to question me first!"
"I told you he was rather unfriendly," Katherine said calmly, and now from a distance as she backed up. She had no desire to be blown up by a crazy man who lived in the loft of a tainted theatre.
"Let me know if you want me up there." Titus whispered back from his place near Katherine. He had no idea who this man was or what was going on, so for now, it was better to observe than to try and make the situation worse.
"Talking, we are. I have little interest in questioning you, but less in dying. The trapdoor, close it please." Tomasz answered, his voice flat.
Stjepan doesn't notice you leaving, and you quickly slip away. The fishing boats are apparently out, and the only humans you notice are a handful of workers shoveling ice out of a massive crate and into a gargantuan icebox.
Cart tracks mark the concrete floor, heading to the left and quickly leading you to the garage, where an old Skoda 206 truck is waiting.
The 1930 vehicle is laughably easy to start even without a key, and a pair of bolt cutters among the repairing tools quickly take care of the lock on the entrance door.
"Can't." the woman apologises, hands still up and otherwise immobile. "I can explain why - assuming your clockwork..."
I was caught on the horns of a dilemma. I could tell he was going to shoot me, and even if he didn't the projection was already starting to unravel. I didn't have time to find out if he was in the know, and I couldn't explain without it - For that matter, I wasn't sure I could explain even if he was in the know.
If I only had time for one question, I'd better make it count.
She sighs and looks at the gun "Are you a Nazi?"
Tomasz eyes narrow, and he looks her over again. "No. Are you?"
Richard waits outside of the garage for the truck to exit.
A little more time, it seems. Or he lied, in which case I could probably rely on him to spend some more time investing in that lie - perhaps enough to find out.
How to find out if he was a practitioner, then? The 'Laundress' downstairs had said he used clockwork, but it could have been a simple timer.
I resolved to test his knowledge; if he proved knowledgeable enough to be a practitioner and I was wrong, I'd bite the bullet and either train him, or kill him before he jammed a cog in the gears of reality. Either way it was going to be a problem in my yearly review - and the last thing I needed was another CLM.
"No! If there are any here I'll prove it. I don't believe those below are either." She nods to herself.
"Alright, one last question; Clockworks. Are you familiar with Lovelace's translation of Menabrea's paper on the Analytic Engine?" The sudden scholarly quote seems at war with the fearsome woman's demeanour "If so; where was the printing error?"
As he hotwires the truck, Leo pauses for just a moment to check his reflection in the rearview mirror. His chin became longer and more sharply defined, nose aquiline, and his eyes shimmered to blue while his hair grew out a few inches and turned black. With a roll of his shoulders, his entire body became leaner, and his skin took on the weathered appearance of one often in the sun.
Then he turned the key in the engine and pulled out of the garage, humming a jaunty tune to himself. The words, if he recalled correctly through his lingering madness, were a rather rude series of verses about what aristocrats got up to with farm animals that scholars had for some reason decided not to record.
As the truck pulls out Richard calls to the man in the truck, "I must speak to you. I suspect you to be a man named Leo who several acquaintances told me about. I believe we have a common enemy."
Leo stops the truck, leans over, and opens the passenger door. Richard gets a look at the large pistol now pointed at him but held out of sight of casual observation.
"Get in before I shoot you," Leo said simply, as though it were nothing more than a pleasant greeting.
"This translation, it would have been in English? That language which I learned to speak only in my thirties?" Tomasz asks, eyes narrowed and his accent coming through even stronger. "I know only that it caused some amount of consternation - her mathematics were apparently quite poor. But... I think I understand your question. Here-"
Reaching slowly, deliberately, into his jacket pocket he pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. "Read this. Let us see if you have the skills I hope you have."
He flicks the folded paper onto the floor in front of her.
The Fearsome woman glares back. Hands still in the air she stoops lower in attempt to read the crumpled, folded bit of paper without touching it.
Richard chuckles and climbs into the truck while saying, "With pleasure my friend. What I am to tell you is of a somewhat sensitive nature regarding my potential actions against the Reich. If you have somewhere more discreet I would suggest we make our way there."
"Hmm, I might still shoot you on principle," Leo said, his tone chilly. He drove away from the fishery carefully, there was no need to draw attention to them and it was also easier to keep the pistol trained on the new passenger.
Richards nods and says genially, "The second time I've had a gun pointed at me today. You might know Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš? They recommended I find you, well, after pointing their weapons at me and threatening to shoot me. Lovely fellows, as I am sure you'd know if you met them." He pauses for a time before he says, "Do you know English? I am far more comfortable with it, being my mother tongue after all." Unless Leo responds that he doesn't, Richard continues, "I sacrificed a decent amount to save you. Made a pact with some rather nasty beings to find you, had to shed some blood for it, certainly more than I would like. In any case, it is good that I've found you. I cannot say I have the fortitude to withstand another pact with said beings."
"Ah, so you are one of those sorts of fools," Leo noted, slipping into English with a pronounced Czech accent. There was frankly little judgement in his voice. Most people were fools of one sort or another and it appeared Richard was no different.
"If you do not have the fortitude, I would suggest another line of work. Have you considered operating a fishery?"
The fearsome looking woman looks at the paper and sighs. "Alright, I think we're on the same page. If I'm wrong, you have my apologies."
Slowly she waves a hand at - and then through - the paper, her eyes trained on the man in front of her.
"Is that what you were looking for?"
Your drive to the State Opera is luckily uneventful: you pass by two German patrols who don't even consider you, and the one that stops you as you drive through New Town is satisfied with checking your license plate against a list of authorized vehicles. You turn around the building and get to the artists' entrance.
"Hng." Tomasz grunts, holstering his pistol. "How annoying. There is, I suppose, some reason you are here?"
The fearsome woman nods, and speaks distractedly. "Recruiting. A Nazi has something I want. Taking it would damage them - and pay well. I want people - who aren't Nazis - to help me. My sources told me there was our kind of fight happening here, and as we are all paranoid, I jumped on the chance to recruit potential allies. As we are all paranoid I didn't come 'in person'."
She turns and heads for the trapdoor. "Look, the clock is ticking. If I found out about this so will others. You're jumpy enough I think you know that - but you haven't left. Either you are trying to find others - in which case 'Hello' - or you are stuck here trying to get a job done, in which case I could probably help."
No, actually, we were just taking a scenic jaunt down the river and ended up here completely by accident... Titus thought with a mental smirk, though he didn't actually say anything. He did want to know what was going on, if only because of professional curiosity.
"I'm here because I was told there was some...Laundry...in need of being cleaned." She shrugged. Even if it was clear the man knew about magic, there was no reason to assume he had a full knowledge of what was happening. "When I noticed this place was in need of a clean, I came in to offer my services. As it were."
From your spot just at the back of the Opera Theatre you hear an engine approaching, then stopping. It sounds like someone is coming your way.
"Hmm, interesting" Leo noted to himself. Parking the truck, he gestured for Richard to get out first with his pistol.
"Out, out," he ordered. If there was something wrong, he could always boot the nosy summoner into the line of danger first.
Richard nods, "Well of course. I would be glad to have you as a rear guard."
A reasonably well dressed, moderately attractive but nondescript woman leans casually against the wall next to the door. She lowers a cigarette as you come around the corner, blows out the smoke and nods. "Dobré ráno."
She appears neither armed or armoured, but carries a larger than normal purse and wears a large fur coat.
"Someone's here!" the Fearsome looking woman calls out, shutting her eyes for a moment.
A reasonably well dressed, moderately attractive but nondescript woman leans casually against the wall next to the door. She lowers a cigarette as you come around the corner, blows out the smoke and nods. "Dobré ráno."
She appears neither armed or armoured, but carries a larger than normal purse and wears a large fur coat.