You also notice a young ifrit boy trailing you. He is wearing acolyte's robes from the Temple.
Fiordelise' mind races with un-askable questions.Why so angry? Is he involved in some way? The tunnels did lead to the lab pretty quickly... I shouldn't jump to conclusions, but this bears looking into.
Fi tries to keep her face and voice casual as her mind races.
"Oh I don't know, but that's a solid door and it was collapsing under them, so they were either powerfully strong or came prepared with a ram."
You find the landmarks easily enough. You are about two blocks away from the Incarna household.
You also notice a young ifrit boy trailing you. He is wearing acolyte's robes from the Temple.
"Listen, he got a little volc'd up during the riots last night. You're not weird around blood or scars or anything, are you?"
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Byron shrugs slightly. "My preference for the arts alchemic as opposed to medical is due to talent not squeamishness which is fortunate given the results of accidents while dealing with volatiles or acids though I haven't witnessed any particularly gruesome scenes but no I do not anticipate having and adverse reaction to the sights in a hospital," he states in his typical breathless fashion.
This gets more interesting, and worrisome, by the day.
There being no point trying to loose the boy while leading the Mister, he continues on towards the Incarna household. Before he gets there, though, he does take her aside and say, "So you're aware, we're being followed. Young boy, temple robes."
Merda!, do we have anything in the house Enzo hasn't drunk already?
"The Sylph saw no need to speak with me, whether the watch managed to extract a confession matters little, surely he is guilty of harvesting the dead, I doubt he has any defence. But why call him Odd? I admit to little experience of drug dealers and harvesters than you must have after all it is in your job to track them down. Did he stand out to you?"
I need to speak with Osric, or Odebie about this... I'm sure he's involved somehow, but I need to tread carefully here, maybe he'll lets slip something else...
His gaze breaks off; he looks at a point over your shoulder. The hunting cat is hidden once more. "My apologies, bella, I have a previous engagement. How utterly vile of me." He bows.
With a quick pace, he leaves out the front door, ignoring anything you might say. The heavy, solid door nearly rattles at the impact of v'Manco's departure. The echo of the slam hardly has time to fade before there is another knock on your door.
Clean, bare stone halls greet you. The first thing you notice is the smell - the chemical stench is not so different than the various labs you have been in, but the added element of elen fluids makes for a nearly tactile odor.
As you pass by one of the doors, you hear a raspy voice say, "Byron Cheme?"
Odebie, you see v'Manco heading away from the Incarna household. He is heading in the opposite direction - he does not see you.
Fi answers your knock almost immediately.
Osric's voice is like a frigid winter wind blowing through branches, barely audible. "That is you, Byron." He struggles out of his bed and limps toward the door, relieved and ecstatic to see his friend again. "Please, tell me what has been uncovered since last night! They won't tell me anything here, and I've had only my thoughts for company."
Fiordelise can't help but flinch as v'Manco all but lunges across the room towards her, and barely resists the urge to draw her sword.
She remembers to breathe once again as he slams the door, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves. At the knock at the door she storms over and yanks it open... "If you think..." she near-shouts, until she realises that it is actually Odebie at the door. "Oh, Odebie and miss..? I apologise, I just had a rather unpleasant visitor, do come in."
"Osric?" Byron's face shows his surprise, then he frowns in thought. "I suppose you were badly injured yes and so of course you would be here though it's something of a coincidence we came down this hallway I suppose but to answer your question I'm afraid the interrogations revealed little new though I suppose there was a name but it didn't mean anything to me."
He listens intently as Byron talks, inserting his own punctuation with nods. "I see, I see. Since I am the coincidence, I suppose you're not here to visit me, which explains your companion." He turns to Giulia and attempts to bow to her out of respect, but it seems stilted and awkward due to his neck brace. "I believe we met the other day ma'am, but I seem to have forgotten your name."
Without waiting for a response, he turns back to Byron. "I have a question for you, and I believe it is vitally important. Have you, or the others, had any suspicious contact in the last 24 hours? That is, has anyone tried to either harm you or befriend you? I suspect we're dealing with..." He notices Giulia standing there again and decides not to finish the sentence.
"Well. I have my suspicions. So who are we here to see? I had enough of that huffernol bed and I need to get out of here. I wouldn't be interrupting anything, would I?"
With that last sentence, Osric emotes far more vulnerably than he intended to. There is a shakiness to it that comes across more like whimpering "please don't leave me" than polite deference.
Byron shrugs slightly, glancing at Giulia. "As far as I'm concerned it would be perfectly fine."
Giulia frowns at Osric. "You a town guard?"
Osric harrumphs at her, perhaps attempting to cover up his previous weakness. "No, young lady, I am neither that incompetent nor that corrupt. I assume you are some flavor of criminal, as they're the only ones who ask that question." He flashes his best paternal smile at her. "As long as you're not harvesting Gasp or attempting to destabilize society as we know it, we can probably get along. So are we going to meet another person of the shadows?"
Odebie, seemingly surprised at the Mister's disrespectful tone, rumbles, "I wanted to get more information from the Misters about the situation from their end, but they refused to even let me in. Their headquarters seemed like a better long-term solution than where Leoni is now." You notice he does not explicitly say where Leoni is, tacitly asking your permission to let the woman into your house, and your basement.
Three rooms down, Giulia guides you into a room nearly identical to Osric's. Across the entrance, however, Osric notices one key difference - a plainclothes sentry, doing an admirable job of blending in, is watching this room.
A gravelly voice greets you as you walk in. "The great alchemist, Brian! Good to see you again, so it is my lad. Come in, come in. And who's your sylphie friend, eh? More alchemical expertise to lend to the matter, as it were?" The obese ifrit from the Plucked Vulture lies in his bed, the left side of his stomach hanging slightly over the bed itself. The right side of his red face is covered in bandages, but the uncovered half seems as jolly as ever.
"Please come in, take a seat, I'll get him for you." She shows the pair through to the living room, and gets them seated, before heading down to see Leoni.
"There's a lady-mister, here to see you, she's with Odebie, so I'm inclined to trust her, but let me know if she's not what she appears, we don't want to go through all this trouble to keep you safe, just to hand you to your enemies.
Byron nods shortly. "He's a friend and he has some knowledge of alchemy yes what is it you wanted to talk about?"
"Oh, uh... *ahem* Sorry. I guess I shan't be waxing eloquent about my near-death hallucinations then." He gives a weak smile in an attempt to cover the social awkwardness.
Osric nods with Byron's explanation. [b] "Please, don't mind me. I'm just here to be an extra set of eyes and ears."
When the kiss is finished, Leoni smiles at the two of you. With an amused undercurrent in his baritone, he says, "Miss Incarna, Corporal Odebie, I can assure you my wife is no secret enemy. Might I trouble you to act as escort for us back to the Steams?"
"So let's talk about that first, shall we? Any suggestions on a painkiller that leaves me clear? Or something to counter the mud, as it were? These doctors have no creative spark to them, it seems."
"Hmm, let's see what they've got you on." Osric examines the medications the doctors prescribed. "Really? They put you on a mixture of witherwort and steam paste? I suppose at your weight you'll be fine, but it seems like they want to keep you here for a while. Thank you for validating my decision to decline the medication myself." He gestures at his neck brace to show he's a fellow patient.
"Now, what would I give you in this situation...."
"Maybe some dried pagona pancreas for clarity and some kava for the pain. But you already knew that remedy, didn't you? Have we passed your test?"
Fiordelise smirks "Are you sure she's not a threat to your life, she seems quite aggressive.", without waiting for a reply she turns to Leoni's wife. "I apologise for keeping your husband from you, I assure you it was merely out of concern for his safety - I don't routinely lock up other ladies husbands..."
"Of course we can escort you where you need to go, jokes aside, are you reasonably sure of your safety?"
. . .
"Odebie, I need to talk to you and Osric, if he's turned up. v'Manco was here a moment ago and it didn't feel like a social visit. He was very interested in what I saw during the arena events."
Pain medication had never really caught Byron's interest, so he just nodded at Osric's assessment.
To Leoni: "Of course, I'd be happy to provide an escort."
And then, turning in to Fi: "I wish I could say I'm surprised. We'll find Osric once we're done at the Mister's Guild and see what pieces we can put together."
Putting her goggles back down, she says, "We know who to trust within the Brumanos . We will be safe."
As you open the door, you all see, across the street, the boy in acolyte's robes that Odebie spotted earlier. After a moment's hesitation, he starts running away, in the direction of the Temple.
"Given the choice, I'd prefer amateur monsters to professional ones. Nevertheless, I believe we share a common goal in the stability of hearth, if not common motives. What exactly is it you're proposing, Mr. ... ?" Osric leaves the sentence unfinished, hoping he'll provide a name, or at least something to call him other than "fat ifrit".
Let's see if this fellow has any more pieces to the puzzle. There are certainly enough missing.
"Yes yes we're both quite opposed to the trade much less the blowing up of things and murder," Byron agrees.
He scratches at his bandages again, winces, and deliberately puts his hand down. "In exchange, I could lend you assistance in the future, in the way of supplies or...what-have-you that you might find hard to procure on your own. What do you say?"
"That is an interesting proposal, Grasso My colleague and I will discuss this further while we prepare your medication. I'm sure we'll be able to find the requisite materials in the hospital's lab."
Osric heads for the door without waiting for a dismissal, but as he's nearly out of it, turns around, pretending to have an afterthought. "Say Grasso... Can you think of anyone who might want to mess with your medication? It's an odd prescription, and it makes me wonder if anyone might want to keep you sidelined." He shrugs it off, as if it doesn't really matter. "It's probably nothing. Just a breezy thought of an old man."
"Should we be worried about the acolyte there?" Fi addresses her concern to the group.
"Well I suppose he's not tailing us now, chances are we can beat him back the dims if we don't tarry."
"He's been tailing us for a while; for some reason the Temple is getting involved. I'm not overly concerned with us beating him anywhere - strict as they are, I find the idea of the temple being behind this business difficult to digest. You're right, though, that it's best not to tarry. The less time out in the open, the better."
Outside Grosso's room, the hospital feels deserted. Osric knows that most of the staff are in a different wing, working on the worst injuries from the riots.
Down a stone hallway or two, you find the medical supply room with no trouble. No one is there, and the door is unlocked. The supplies are neatly shelved around the room, in good order with one or two exceptions.
"Certainly his offer seems reasonable and I for one would like the opportunity to strike at these Gasp dealers though the idea of waiting to destroy their operations until after attacking their reputation is less appealing," Byron babbles, though he has enough presence of mind to do it quietly.
Osric joins Byron in speaking quietly, but only because it's all he's capable of.
"Believe me when I say nobody is more motivated than I am when it comes to shutting down the gaspers." Osric adjusts his neck brace uncomfortably to emphasize the point. "Nevertheless, are you interested in becoming a petty burglar to achieve your ends while serving the needs of Volc knows who?"
Osric grabs reagents off the shelf and begins preparing a mixture for Grosso as he continues speaking. "There is more elements in play here than the Gaspers, Byron. Think about it. If they are the only criminal organization involved with what we've seen in the last few days, then things don't make sense. First of all, there should have been attempts on our lives for blowing up their lab, but we've enjoyed relative peace while parts of Hearth burn. Second, if we hadn't blown up the lab, those Sylph muties right behind us would have. Third, they had a surprisingly effective Sylph trap set up at the arena, and it isn't in the best interests of the hunter to poison their own Brutbreve bait. Fourth, nobody attacks the Misters if they're happy with the status quo. Fifth, as soon as we meet back up, with the Gaspers reeling, we're given a proposition to commit crimes to hurt them for another anonymous group's benefit."
He pours a bubbling solution into an opaque maroon liquid, measuring precisely. "So the real questions now are one, how much do we play along with their game, and two, when can we start playing our own?
The solution settles out to a milky pink liquid. "We need to meet up with Fi and Odebie. They will have further data points that help us determine how to proceed. I was convinced it was an imported Sylphan terrorist group until Grosso chimed in. It still might be. Who knows? Let's get this back to him before he gets suspicious."
It's clear from Byron's expression that he hasn't considered any of this. "I can't say I've given any thought to the criminal world before it always seemed like a fool's game I suppose but that doesn't mean there aren't some competent elens involved..."
"If only they were all fools, my job would be much easier. Has anyone else aside from Giulia contacted you recently? We need to collect all the facts before we start leaping to conclusions."
"Well there was Eldon but I rather doubt he has anything to do with this as he was talking about a weapon to fight the Dark with not Gasp..."
"Hmm. Perhaps, but it's best to keep it in mind. We may be innocent bystanders in all this, but enough is happening around us for people to start taking an interest in our activities. Anyway, this remedy should put us in Grosso's good graces for the time being."
"As for Grosso, I recommend we politely decline his offer, but take to heart his suggestion of attacking their reputation rather than their persons. I have a crazy idea to do just that, but we'll need help to make it work. If Grosso knows the shape of our plans, it will be easier for him to betray us for his own benefit."
Without a word, Grosso drinks down the mixture Osric offers. He makes a slight grimace at the taste, but offers no other comment. "Your answer, gentlemen?" His lips tremble as he lets out a belch that smells of raspberries and vinegar.
Once again, you are enveloped by the Steams. Left, right, up, and down are all devoured by opaque swirls. The heat attaches itself to you like an emotional drunkard, refusing to release you from its wet embrace.
Odebie hears the barest scratch from further down the alley, sounding like claws on stone. A bright creature bursts from the steam - for a moment, you mistake it for a fire elemental.
As it closes in, the shape becomes clearer - a looming dog-like beast, standing as tall and wide as Odebie. Tendrils of flame and smoke twitch and crackle around the hound's body. Lumpy jowls frame a mouth crammed with serrated teeth. Pinhole pupils stare from orange-on-red eyes.
The breath of the hound crawls over you. It stinks heavily of sulfur and rotten beef.
Osric arches an eyebrow at Grosso as he pounds back the pain medicine. "It's curious that you'd trust a remedy concocted by two un-allied alchemists when there's been so much poison in the field recently."
He pauses a moment for a reaction before continuing with a broad smile. "Of course, you have nothing to be concerned about, as we are honest folk. I would watch out for the side effects, though. It can cause diarrhea and red urine. It's perfectly harmless, but a little jarring if you're not expecting it."
"As for your offer, I believe it is in our best interests to decline at this time. While I may have resorted to B&E in my day, doing so at the behest of, let's admit it, an un-trusted source, seems foolhardy at best. We must instead go our own way in seeking to discredit the reputation of the Gaspers.
Byron, for once, simply nods rather than adding his own words.
Grys pa se gesiftifiseerde baadjie... it's a fire elemental.
Odebie staggers a half step backwards and draws his hammer. He's panic-readying it for a swing before he stops, and musters himself. He's dealt with elementals before. Holding one hand out, in his most imperious voice he shouts
The effect is spoiled a bit by his voice cracking, but it might be enough.
I'll also roll my AoO if it charges.
When you refuse his offer, he shrugs. "No hard feelings, eh? Just, ah, don't ask for favors anytime soon, eh littl' sylphies?" He turns his wide back to you and picks up a cheap-looking set of hospital flatware. As he begins eating, you are relatively certain you have been dismissed.
Byron turns and leaves, thinking over things. They would need help now, of course, meaning it would be useful to meet up with Odebie and Fiordelise. Odebie might be at the Watch, but he didn't really know where Fi might be. Hadn't she taken Leoni with her, though? Which meant...
He leans over to Osric and whispers, "If we wanted to meet up with our recent companions I suspect at least Fiordelise would be headed towards the Mister Headquarters today at some point."