GM Heat's Quarrel for the Headdress

Game Master Red Heat

"Y... You would...?"

Poor Manigold had to be assured and then reassured that yes, the Lord Betony was quite serious: he would disperse these bandits himself. It was a rare man who could take on the task of an entire platoon of soldiers, but Riveh thought he just might be that man. The envoy was not convinced, not initially. Perhaps he worried this was the folly of youth speaking, perhaps he fretted over sending his better to his death; whatever the case, he tried to talk the ifrit out of it. Surely the Lord could not risk himself? Surely some other solution could be found? When he saw that the young man's mind was set, however, an anxious smile - very much sincere - broke out over the broad face.

"W-well, if I cannot dissuade you and you're absolutely sure... Thank you! Thank you, Lord Betony! For you to even consider this... I don't know how to reward you, but the Princess will hear of your valor, that much I promise!"

A regent's favor certainly counted for something. But for now the only reward Riveh cared for was sleep. It was the end of a terribly long day. Happily, Manigold recused himself without any crass prompting, keen as the negotiator was to social cues. "Good night, my Lord," he said at the door, bowing. "We will speak again to... Ah."

The soft utterance came at a sudden movement down the hallway. Both managed to catch a glimpse of a tall cylinder of a hat over dark hair before it disappeared behind the corner. Manigold smirked, almost fondly. "The good Sir Varinazzo. As I said, though our allegiances differ, as mediators we are really not so different."

So the General's representative here had hoped to reach Riveh before the evening was out as well? The ifrit was proving popular tonight. Regardless, the man had likely gotten whatever answers he sought simply by seeing Manigold leave the room. Hopefully this meant that the Geminus had no further nocturnal visits in store. The only visitor he welcomed now was the Sandman!

Farewells and wishes of pleasant dreams were exchanged, and with that - finally - he could pull back the duvet and slip beneath the fresh linen, and not a moment too soon. Riveh had quite the day planned for tomorrow.

"Taldan aphorism: Pride goes before a fall," buzzed an electric voice from on high a wardrobe. Only the orange reflection of the oil lamp on the inevitable's metal form was could be seen of it.

"Reassurance: Not to worry, Master. I shall be sure to catch you."

Factor-12, his guardian angel? Either the gods were mad or someone had it out for him in the Great Beyond.

---

*knock knock knock*

"C'mon in."

The voice on the other side of the oak door was tired with more than sleep could cure, but not without spirit. Baron Kustios was clearly up as the staff had promised him.

Riveh had not found the city's leader at the otherwise well attended breakfast table. In his stead was young Marcus who - though seemingly a good-natured lad - hadn't quite mastered the social arts of hosting. Watching him awkwardly bumble his way through conversation with Trant was almost endearing, and hadn't been the worst entertainment to go along with his bacon. Bless him, he had even looked a bit hurt when asked where he could find his great granduncle.

So it was that the ifrit had been led to the Baron's private chambers. He entered at the invitation and found himself in a rancher's grandest ambition. For the space was luxurious, but not as the typical aristocrat understood the term. There was no lavish artwork, no filigreed fittings, no embroidered cushions. In particular, there was no gold. Instead the room consisted of all the elements of a simple log cabin, normally so humble but here perfected. The wooden walls led up to a high ceiling with beams exposed, the timber so impeccably maintained and well-oiled it almost appeared to be coated in a film of glass. It shone in the morning light streaming in through the high windows. An expansive carpet (predictably sewn in a vista of galloping horses) led up to a four poster bed, also in wood. It had been recently made. Decorations were sparse, but... Riveh's eyes had to stop at the stuffed head of a lion hanging high up on a wall. Especially as its eyes stopped at him. The thing was animated. He had never known lions to grow to this size. Aroden's ghost, no wonder only the head was preserved. When alive, the beast must have almost stood shoulder to shoulder with an elephant! It was perfectly life-like, no doubt due to magic, in everything from lustrous mane shimmering in the sunlight to dagger-like teeth currently bared at him. Not a sound was heard from it, however.

Not so with the room's sole occupant. "Good morning, Lord Betony."

The greeting was pleasant enough, but as in the Hippodrome, the speaker barely looked up at him. This time it wasn't a horse show that had his attention. The Baron was sitting at a rich oaken table before the window. The seat offered a lovely second-story vantage point over the entire compound; the ifrit could see the servants' outbuildings, stables and, at the very end, the looming dome of the Hippodrome. It was what covered the table that occupied the venerable lord, however. It was festooned with horse tack. Bridles, halters, reins, bits, harnesses, everything except the saddle. These the old man was going through one by one, polishing them with some waxy substance from a tin resting in his lap.

"Did you sleep well? Yeah, a full day's journey will do that," he croaked. "Go on, pull up a chair." Despite the circumstances, Kustios did not seem at all put off at his young visitor's intrusion. If anything he appeared lively, working through the equine equipment briskly.

"Here." He dipped a cloth into the tin and held out it out for the ifrit. It smelled vaguely gamey. "It's wool grease. For maintaining leather. Have to keep it supple or it cracks. Sit down, take your boots off. They're all scuffed. Go on. Give them a once-over."

This was among the more unique proposals Riveh had received among the aristocracy yet.

"You'll have to excuse my absence at the breakfast table. I don't much like having others see what my feed consists of." He pointed one bony finger towards the end of the table. A silver tray with what looked like half an apothecary sat there. Tinctures, vials, elixirs of every color; it was a veritable rainbow of remedies. "My guests, Manigold and Varinazzo - I don't want them to think me weak. Mind you, I don't particularly enjoy looking on while others eat their eggs and bacon. The wise men say this stuff'll keep me spry, but I've got no appetite left once I manage to down the swill. Won't delay the inevitable, of course, but it'll ensure that death will have to catch me on my feet. Heh. Have you eaten already? Did you see young Marcus downstairs? Is he still resting his elbows on the table?"

All throughout, the lord's hands - no doubt very well practiced indeed - never ceased in their menial work. This was clearly routine, even meditative for the man. Still, despite the good humor Riveh could not help but be reminded of the Baron's mortality. The hands - they really were skeletal. Seeing him now still in his night shirt, much thinner than yesterday's voluminous robe, the ifrit was privy to just how painfully lean he was. This was a dying man.

"What can I do for you this morning, Lord Betony? Are you all prepared for departure?"

Riveh took the offered tin and rag without a word, silently hooking a chair and pulling it close. It rattled loudly off the floor before the ifirt sat down in it. Automatically, as if in a trace, the young man began unlacing a boot.

Inside though, he felt a tide of emotion. This old man, going through what was clearly a treasured daily ritual. How many times had the Baron sat down, looking out over his lands, and fussing with his tack? How many mornings? Was it something he had done with his family, before? Or had it always been a lonely pursuit.

But now...always alone. Once again that striking image of an aged forest monarch, left alone among piles of cut logs, sprang to mind. This man should be looking back at a life well-lived and a family well-raised, not ahead to a bleak and empty future.

It took a moment before Riveh started to answer the Baron's questions, as as he began polishing his boots. While it wasn't something he did on a regular basis, he at least knew the idea. How many Taldane noble could say likewise?

"Marcus was a fine host." Riveh said, not even lying. Watching him try to play the proper aristocrat had been...endearing. He decided to not remark on the small hoard of medical enhancements. Riveh knew just enough that such topic tended to be a favored one among the elderly but...well, he just couldn't bring himself to comment.

He decided to simply come to the final point, "You have done all I could ask for already, Baron Kustios ." A bit formal Riveh reflected but then again, he was a guest. Best to play it safe, even with this rather...what had been Manigold's word? *Bucolic* man.

"And I do wish to thank you for that, for taking us in with such personal hospitality."A pause and then, "But actually, my topic is more of something I can do for you, if you'll let me."

"If you recall, I had an unpleasant interaction with a local group of bandits, shortly before our arrival." Nobles liked understatement, right? Riveh found himself a bit at sea since Baron Kustios was quite unlike any noble he had met (or heard of) before. " Manigold came to my rooms last night and mentioned it had been an on-going problem, which you also alluded to. Well, it has been gnawing at me every since. To let such rogues go about their business, preying on innocent travelers. Even in the best of times....well, this isn't the best of times. We both know that."

Riveh shrugged, "Well, let me come to the heart of it, Baron. I'd like to offer my services and try to run these bandits off, if you'd allow it. Me, a few of my party, and perhaps any townsfolks who are both willing and have your blessing. I feel we may have some success against them, if we are careful. What do you think?" He tried his best to not sound too eager for such deadly work, and frankly Riveh liked the idea more then the actual execution.

Execution? Bad choice of words.

Still, Riveh hoped he laid it out well. No direct mention of politics, no whisper of the Princess or civil war. Just a hint of Manigold and let the old man draw his own conclusions. Riveh got the sense this old man was sharper then he would let on. No need to hit him over the head with such things. Just let the offer stand....would make it easier if he laughed Riveh out of the room. That way it was only his own embarrassment, not the Princess's.

The aged forest monarch. The moniker was perhaps just a bit ironic, here in the middle of the Tandak Plains where no trees blotted the horizon, where a rider could push their horse for a full day and night without catching a glimpse of treetops. None but those preserved here in Prusa for that curios little park. And yet, looking into the worn features of the Baron, all furrowed and grooved - and creasing further still in appreciation of his young guest not too snooty to maintain his own shoes - these fit the moniker just fine; the man's skin was such he almost appeared clad in bark. This impression was helped by how he was, while not exactly tanned, certainly more familiar with the sun than most of his peers.

"Good," he nodded simply at Riveh's acknowledgement of his great grandnephew. "That means he's listening to his tutors. Gods know I don't have the patience to teach him table manners."

There was no pause for applause, no mirthful sparkle in the eye, but the ifrit was fairly sure this was the Baron's humor. He wondered briefly, in thinking of the lost legacy of the old man, what he was imparting onto his young protégé? Statesmanship? Local affairs? Horse dressage? Whatever the case, it surely came with a certain sense of urgency given the... well, limited days of the mentor.

On that note, perhaps it was best to move onto the real reason he was here. With as much diplomatic poise as he could muster, the ifrit ventured onto his offer as a polar explorer ventured onto a frozen lake, carefully and in steps. It wouldn't do to seem brash here, after all, and certainly not murderous. It especially wouldn't do to turn this into a political issue. And so he laid out his proposal as neutrally as he could manage, the Baron for his part listening intently, likely noting the significance of his young guest's words.

It wasn't long before Riveh saw that the skeletal hands - so practiced in their work as to be automatic - fall still. Manigold had been right. This matter of the bandits really weighed on the man. He had the Baron's full attention. Sadly, with every word the snowy brow sank further down the cave mouths of the deep-set eyes. The blue gleam he saw there - it wasn't anger, nor outrage at his audacity. Frankly, the ifrit had trouble reading the uncommon lord at the best of times, but whatever response this was glinting in the dark grottos, it was severe.

His offer conveyed, Kustios did not reply - not initially. Instead he turned his vulture neck to look out over the compound, staring, glaring. The man was thinking, and thinking hard at that. What was this now? Surely his suggestion was a simple one, wholly benign. What was there to ponder? He was even breathing heavier. Riveh could hear the wheeze of worn lungs. This lasted a full five seconds.

"No."

The single syllable was cracked yet direct, like a dry branch being snapped. "You do not have my blessing to hunt these outlaws. In fact, I forbid it."

He turned now towards Riveh, his aspect severe as only those who have condemned men to their deaths can manage it. "Lord Betony, I don't know what your... politics are, and I know better than to ask. But you..." Again he paused. Again he thought, but when he spoke again it was with a milder, though no less insistent, aspect, as if he wanted to start over.

"Listen... I've seen a great deal in my time. Knights who could barrel through a shield wall. Dragon hunters. Those varied sundries you and I might call adventurers. These rare few who can do what others deem impossible. I don't know if you're counted among them. You say you wield some magic; for all I know you shoot lightning out your end and brush aside armies. Maybe you and yours can take on twenty men on horseback. I don't know." He coughed. "But I do know that that's not your risk to take. Betony, you are a landed lord now, a leader. You have people who depend on you. How long has it been since old Aliss died? Thirty? That's thirty years of your people stuck in some... some political quagmire of no one representing them, no one looking out for their interests. And you would risk them losing their new leader before they've even met him? Hell, risk ending the Betony line?"

He pointed a bony finger at Riveh's hand where no wedding band sat. "Well, I say your life is not yours to risk anymore. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

The Baron said no?

As a young child, Riveh had a weakness for sweet things. Creams, pastries, honey, anything with sugar. One night in a daring bit of rule breaking and daring, the young ifrit had snuck down at night to raid the estate's pantry (a seemingly endless cavern of delights and treats). In his hurried raid, he had grabbed what seemed a promising sack out of the corner and retreated to the safety of his room. To his delight the bag was filled with cream puffs, dully gleaming with white sugary dust. With relish, young Riveh had closed his eyes and bit deep.

Only to find the desserts had been baked years before he had even been born and left forgotten in corner, having long transformed to little more then dust and air.

That sudden bite of disappointment returned, with a vengeance to Riveh now. The Baron had said...no? But it had seemed the perfect plan! A way to win over the crusty noble, to avenge his wounded pride and to actually help the local people! It was a good deed, right out of the heroic stories he used to enjoy. Everyone, the Baron, Trant, Martella, even the Princess (when she surely heard of his genius) would have approved and lauded his noble sacrifice!

This old man wasn't supposed to say no!

"Oh."

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (9) + 3 = 12

But why? Was it really because he was concerned about the Betony line? Perhaps such concerns struck closer to home with the lonely old man, suddenly rift from his family. Was legacy weighing heavily on the old Baron?

"But ..." Riveh trailed off, not even sure how to counter such an argument. 'I..." He started and stopped again, sitting back and holding his grease stained rag rather foolishly. Riveh had never even considered the possibility of being turned down, flat. Laughed out of the room maybe, or dismissed as being incapable. But actually forbidden on the face?

What to do? Tell the truth? Bring out the politics and tell this old man there was more at stake here then some minor noble line? Tell him the real truth, that he was fully an agent of the Princess and not a betony at all?

Or the real real truth?

"Baron Kustios." Riveh started, leaning forward earnestly if nervously. Like a man telling a secret. "I am a....young man. I am heading out into a task, of becoming a Betony noble, that I had never thought was my lot in life. This is a surprise to me, unexpected in the extreme. " Well, isn't that the truth?

"While I spoke the truth before, about some capability of magic and with weapons...I am mostly untested. My life has not prepared me for what is coming, what we both know is coming. Violence and hard choices. This here, these bandits in your realm....what better way to test myself? Prove myself. Not to others," Riveh waved away the entire world. "But to myself? You speak of the Betony line. Is such a line worthwhile, in these days, if they hide away from mere bandits? What I am stepping into is not a...'political quagmire'. But perhaps....civil war." The last word is said softly, with respect and gravity.

He could see it coming. Before he even finished his appeal, Riveh could see it coming. The clenching of the jaw, the settling of the brow; it was like watching a fortress seal itself on the eve of battle, right down to the iron portcullis shutting close behind the deep-set blue eyes. He was doing it again. Just like with the two envoys before, Kustios was now stonewalling him. His every argument, his every plea - it all rebounded like arrows against bulwark, fortified as it was with the sort of bullheadedness only afforded those stubborn enough to see a century of life. He allowed his young guest to speak. Such was the lot of a good host. But the ifrit knew it was futile within the first few words.

"I've said my piece."

His tone was final as fate. The Baron would not be swayed. He returned to his horse tack.

---

"But... but this makes no sense," lamented Manigold, not for the first time.

"It really doesn't," replied Stig through a mouthful of apple. "How this stupid tw*t thought he could beat a whole band o' cutthroats when he can't beat puberty is anyone's guess."

Dust kicked up by the heavy horses - made heavier still by their full barding - billowed in the sunshine. From where they were standing, it looked like trainers were putting the horses through their paces, probably to make them combat ready. Riveh supposed even beasts like these needed to get used to such heavy armor. "Still..." said the disheartened envoy, dutifully ignoring the knight's foul language. "For the Baron to just refuse a great aid to his city, a solution to a problem plaguing everyone here... I don't understand it."

Stig reclined further onto the fence, giving the impression of a shaggy old tomcat. "What's there to understand? Kustios is a sentimental old fool who told Lord Derring-f*ckin'-do over here to pack it in lest he get himself killed. Gone soft in his old age. Happens to the best of us."

Comments like these were exactly why they had taken the conversation outside. No one would hear them convene here, although in retrospect they could have chosen an enclosure in the shade of the Hippodrome; the ifrit had very near literal fire running through his veins, but the late spring weather could be a bit taxing. Trant, fair as she was, had chosen to accessorize her usual classy ensemble with a fashionable umbrella. She looked ready for a promenade jaunt even if some would object that hip slung swords weren't it for women's' fashion this summer.

"This is most disappointing," Manigold moaned, ringlets shaking with his head.

"Said the rich boy who's last sight of blood was at the bottom of a f*ckin' plate of beef." Stig's yellowed teeth chomped the apple core in half. "I for one ain't leapin' to fight a half score killers in whatever sh*thole they've no doubt dug out for themselves. This is not our job. And if golden boy disagrees, then he has less sense than the demented sack o' bones leadin' this ranch."

Well, that was certainly an opinion. And aggravating as it was to concur with the knight in anything, Riveh found himself wondering. If Kustios didn't want help with this, then what more was there to do? Nothing but to move on, perhaps. Stig certainly thought so. The Dame was notably silent on the matter, as was the inevitable, it floating above with the sun gleaming off its chassis.

Riveh lets out a long suffering sigh, not at Stig's by now ritual abuse but in agreement with Manigold's disappointment. Even now, hours and much discussion later, the Baron's refusal rankled him. Just why had the old man turned down such a profitable deal? Did he really care if Riveh got hurt in the attempt?

"Oh Stig, don't worry," Riveh offered, "I was going to have you do all the fighting anyway. You know more about s!+&holes then the rest of us put together." But even a rather witty reply did not raise the ifrit's spirits.

Another sigh, "But, as much as I hate to say it, Sir Stig is correct here. If the Baron forbids it...he forbids it. Not only is victory far less likely without his support, making him angry just undermines the whole project. " The young man turned to Manigold, "I'm sorry. I thought my plan would work...."

Feeling a bit shame faced he added hopefully, "Perhaps the offer at least will thaw him slightly. Who knows? " A third shrug and Riveh gazes around at the dusty, sun washed landscape, colors drained by the burning orb above.

"I suppose we should get ready to leave then, clearly we aren't helping here."

"Oh Stig, don't worry," Riveh offered, "I was going to have you do all the fighting anyway. You know more about s@**holes then the rest of us put together."

A derisive, if not unamused, snort huffed through the knight's oft-broken nose. "Keep at it, boy. Either you get a good one someday, or someone knocks your teeth out; everyone wins."

Poor Manigold looked, and not for the first time, positively aghast at the informal tone the trio maintained between themselves. To address a landed lord with anything other than reverence was likely unthinkable for the lowborn man. But it was that same reverence that compelled him to say nothing of it and let his betters carry on as they saw fit. Instead he gave a now resigned Riveh a bow.

"My lord, if Baron Kustios will not appreciate your generous offer, then I must: thank you. Your intention was noble, and though nothing come of it, this is no fault of your own. I do not mean to undermine the Baron's reputation here in Prusa - as I said, he is beloved by his people - but I will still notify my superiors of your bravery. That Her Majesty hears of your valor is the least you deserve."

That was something, he supposed. Nevertheless, it was a disappointed ifrit that looked about the sunlit compound, shrugged and made to leave. They were in no particular hurry, but they had nothing to wait for here in Prusa. And so - back to the manor house to prepare for departure.

It was a course of action Stig loudly agreed with, sauntering ahead with his cat-like gait. Not so with Trant. She lagged behind for a bit, gazing into the blue horizon, regal brow set in that unfortunately less than approachable demeanor that was its resting position. But the moment passed, upon which she dutifully followed.

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

There we go!

Riveh offers a hand to Ernst, the gesture obviously surprising (shocking) the man. Nobles in Taldor don't do such things, not with their social inferiors. Was Riveh merely forgetting that...or did he have actual growing respect for this guy, doing his best to serve the same cause?

In any case, soon they are alone again. Riveh is about to tramp off after the foul-mouthed knight when he catches sight of Trant. Not that the large womn was ever really out of sight, doubly so with an umbrella. But the noble woman had been oddly reticent during this conversation, the entire debate over the bandits. Riveh had thought maybe she just didn't have much to say but now....

"Something on your mind?" The ifrit says, stepping over to her, just shy of her rather tempting looking shade. The heat of the day was turning his mouth into clay. "You haven't said much about...well, all this. I was, of course, only going to accept volunteers." A strained attempt at a smile, "I wasn't going to sign you up for bandit duty without asking first."

His eyes travel to the dark green mound of the nature reserve. In the blazing sunlight, its recesses looked oddly tempting and inviting. The only trees for leagues upon leagues. "Something with the trees?" Riveh added, jutting a chin toward the grove.

It was a day of intense hues. Emerald grass, azure sky, ivory clouds; the brilliant sunlight saturated the vista, lending everything a vibrancy unique to the season. Trant was no exception. Amidst all these precious stones, she appeared rendered in marble. 'Statuesque' was the descriptor that leapt to mind at the woman, but rarely had she seemed quite so like those stark statues of the Azlanti tradition: dignified, severe and just a bit larger than life.

Fortunately her expression lightened as Riveh asked for her thoughts, though something somber remained about the blonde brow like a deeper shade within the canopy of the umbrella.

"You haven't said much about...well, all this. I was, of course, only going to accept volunteers." A strained attempt at a smile, "I wasn't going to sign you up for bandit duty without asking first."

"Thank you for saying so, Ge..." She bit down on the next utterance before it could escape her teeth. "Sorry, sorry," she went on, annoyed at herself. "Don't worry, I will get this right."

This wasn't the first time the Dame had nearly let his true name slip, the ifrit noted. It had happened once or twice over their journey so far, although never under circumstances that could have threatened their cover. Blunt, even emotional, as she was, he briefly wondered whether Trant was cut out for these cloak-and-dagger capers. Heck, he had little trouble in reading her by now, and he was no psychic (excepting that one capability of his to very literally tear people's thoughts out). Would the enemy be able to do the same?

"As I was saying: thank you for saying so, Lord Betony, but it's fine. Really, it is. I know what I'm here for."

That... sounded more than a little forlorn, reassuring little smile be damned.

"Hm?" she wondered, genuinely enough at the question of the park. "No. No, nothing really. It's just... Well, I'm not exactly looking forward to another nine hours of being jostled about in that box." The last few miles in the coach had been pretty rough, yeah. "I swear, I feel like I've traveled back and forth a dinner table in a saltshaker..."

What did that have to do with the woodland area, Riveh had to wonder even as the Dame made to walk back to the manor. "What? Nothing. I was just wondering if we would get a chance to stretch our legs, and I've never seen a proper forest before. I considered a stroll there, that's all."

Ah. So the young noblewoman hadn't just dressed for a promenade jaunt. She had actually been hoping for one. Still, she seemed entirely at peace with leaving Prusa now. And it wasn't like they wouldn't see plenty of forest at Meratt, it bordering great Verduran.

Riveh did not judge Trant too harshly for the almost slip. Not because it wasn't dangerous (it was) but because while the towering woman might not be suited to such things....neither was he. Indeed, he had told a random Baron more then was really wise, and for what?

Nothing!

"If you know what you are 'for'," Riveh said, partly out of kindess and partly out of self-pity for plans gone awry, "That makes one of us." He lets out a heavy sigh yet again. "Well, I generally agree but walking to Meratt sounds even less enticing. At least the carriage keeps the rain and sun off." he waves a hand toward the blazing sun.

When Dame Trant virtually requests a stroll through the little nature reserve the young ifrit pauses. His first instinct is, of course, to say no. This isn't the place for casual jaunts through the countryside. They had appointments to keep, a mission to fulfill. The road from Pursa to Meratt wasn't getting any shorter. Worse, Riveh would have liked to leave this town and it's rather ungrateful Lord.

But on the other hand....Trant was going with him onto a task of questionable legality and plenty of unquestionable danger. Didn't he owe her a walk in the woods, if she wanted it? And also, deep down, Riveh felt if they just stayed in town a bit longer, something would happen, a change would allow his obviously brilliant plan to come off.

Dreams died hard for the young man.

"A stroll?" Riveh nodded, "Sure. Besides, it'll give Stig more time to get drunk before we set out."

Well, this was admittedly rather nice. Hedge Hill, as the entrance sign helpfully informed them the place was known as, was less a public park than a collection of such. One of two hills within the city, it was lower than the Baron's compound, but covered a greater area, one devoted entirely to colorful little flower gardens and the plazas that connected them. These were of course currently in full bloom, such that one could hardly walk them without feeling the spirit flourish in concert. Granted, it wasn't Oppara, crown of the civilized world, but then what was? There the eye couldn't turn without landing on a dozen statues, a score of dedications to the nation's (and in effect, the world's) best and brightest, its triumphs and glories.

Hedge Hill was no such outdoor gallery, instead having somewhat of a utilitarian bent. For Prusa's practical nature glimpsed through even here. Some of the gardens had actual use, for one, a pragmatism that would be considered rude in most other pleasure gardens. Apple, pear, cherry, plum; none of these trees were cultivated on an commercial scale here - aesthetics had to be considered after all - but were still plentiful enough to supplement the place's upkeep at the very least. Perhaps the Prusans just couldn't help themselves. Then again, the hill's desertion spoke volumes; the average citizen had better things to do on an industrious spring morning than meander a garden. Riveh and Malphene found themselves virtually alone, the only other guests being the occasional well-to-do (aristocratic?) couple, usually older, out on a morning stroll. When their paths crossed, they made sure to politely greet the well dressed, handsome young man. He noted that their eyes always studiously avoided the Dame.

Of course, he wasn't used to being acknowledged himself. What a difference Martella's simple mask - little more than a blanching of his natural self - could make. Nature walks had a way of inducing introspection, and such were his thoughts in seating himself on a stone bench for an early lunch. Though just as he was joined by the towering noblewoman, she too evidently harbored some meditation of her own. Trant hadn't said much since they set out. Although not displeased at his willingness to join her for a walk, it had so far been set to nothing but bird song; not much had been said between them.

"Are these any good?" she queried now, looking down at the snack they'd bought from an elderly street vendor: prunes coated in licorice dust, supposedly sourced here in the park. One blonde brow arched high in skepticism.

Whatever they were, they seemed peculiar enough to give a try. And if they didn't like them, then perhaps those kids would be famished enough from their ball game to take 'em off their hands; the gentle slopes of the hill had more than a few tiered amphitheaters and sporting grounds built into them as well. None of these were grand affairs, instead clearly intended to be used by the citizenry as they saw fit. A group of children were currently tussling about the nearest one such. The ifrit could imagine small scale enactments of classic plays here in the long summer evenings. It was a rather idyllic image.

Which, curiously enough, was the last way anyone would describe the chief characteristic of the hill, the feature that had drawn the pair here: the actual forest. Dominating the top of the slope it stood out like an island of wilderness in an otherwise civilized sea. Even at a distance, Riveh could tell that this was unlike any forest he'd seen before. There was something... foreboding about the dense clumping of thick trees, as if this was not the sort of woodlands mere animals resided in. No, forests such as these were the domain of wicked witches that ate good little boys & girls.

"Um... Gem-, uh..."

His attention was brought back from the dark fairytale setting above at the sound of the Dame's strangely muffled voice. "What do I do with the seed?" she asked, dignity battling awkwardness, around a cheekful of plum pits.

Oh dear. Sometimes it was easy to forget just how sheltered an upbringing the daughter of House Trant had led. Never mind the common practice of simply spitting out seeds, had she even encountered pitted fruit before? Had a legion of servants preserved her from such inconveniences up till now? Regardless, the distressed noblewoman looked just a bit ridiculous trying to talk around the stuff whilst preserving decorum, the effort only adding to her awkwardness.

The hot sunny day was much more enjoyable in the shade. In fact, sitting here under the leafy canopy of a rather spectacular juniper was downright pleasant. The stone bench was cool and smooth under him, well placed among the twisting roots of the old but well tended tree. The sound of playing children and sighing of the wind in the branches added to the restful, relaxing effect. Pursa might be an industrious, practical town but they made a nice park. Maybe Oppara could import a few gardeners?

Seeing Trant's difficulty brought him back to Golarion, and he couldn't help but smile at the noblewoman's discomfiture. Should he tell her he passed many an afternoon spitting prune seeds, plum pits and even bits of apple cores into the little creeks and streams back home? The memory hits him hard, those hazy warm days of childhood. Why did they all seem like summer? Surely he spent just as many days of his youth in winter? Yet, looking back, it was all a rather golden haze....Strange.

But no, for Trant, spitting was not going to be an option. Still smiling he flourished a rather battered handkerchief. After a quick check to make sure it wasn't stained or otherwise unsuitable, the young ifrit rose to his feet. With a grand gesture he flourished it for Lady Trant, fluttering it slightly.

"Try this, m'lady." Riveh said formally, "Perhaps it can act as a worthwhile reservoir for such...byproducts."

"Don't laugh at me!"

The demand was less than compelling, delivered as it was through a laugh of her own. No contagion had ever been as infectious as a smile, especially among friends, and so it was that Riveh's amusement saw the noblewoman's usual (if culinarily compromised) dignity split along the seams into a smile of her own. And what smile! Like sunbeams peeking through a shower, made all the more precious for their absence, was it its relative rarity that lent Trant's grin its appeal? Was it made dearer by being obscured behind the dim cloud of her habitual haughty self?

If so, its stock should be notably appreciated; he realized that it had been some time since they had laughed together.

"We didn't all have the great fortune to be raised by owlbears," she sniped in snatching the proffered handkerchief. "Thank you." Should he retaliate with a jeer about her father, the Duke Quintus Trant, himself in the same weight division as an owlbear? Would that be inappropriate? Did the statute of limitations on making fun of the recently deceased apply when they were brought back to life?

The banter would have to wait. The ifrit realized this as that same shadow - not the cloud of hubris, but something dimmer - fell back over the Dame's features. She realized this herself too, sighing like an elder feeling the onset of a familiar knee ache. She appeared annoyed, and wasn't that just quintessentially Trant? Being annoyed with one's own feelings, as if they were a nuisance to one's being rather than what made up the spirit. He'd gotten good at reading her by now, and though he'd only noticed so recently, the young woman was clearly harboring some dilemma. Something had gotten between the two. Whatever it was, it cloyed the air between them, rendering the atmosphere about the simple stone bench thick as the juniper berries above.

Behind the navy blue eyes, warring emotions found a victor. She knew this needed airing. She knew he knew this. She knew he knew she knew this.

"Listen, I..." she began, voice fair as a failing politician, even resigned. "You don't owe me any explanation, that goes without saying. And it's really no concern of mine. But... why didn't you tell me Coufas and you were together?"

Riveh's first reaction was....no reaction. Just a blank stare as he tried to understand the confusing words Trant just said. Together? What did Trant mean? Wasn't it obvious they were allies-

Once, in his teenage youth, Riveh had watched a game of Conqueror being played between two local talents. The board game , with all its intricate tactics and strategy had never appealed to the ifrit but on this occasion something unusual had happened. As if by magic, Riveh had seen a move ahead, then two, then three. All pieces working as if interlocked in a great machine, cause and effects. Things falling into place.

And, all of a sudden, this happened in Riveh's mind as he unraveled Trant's statement.

Oh. Oh.

By reflex Riveh stood up, sat down and then rose again more slowly. Words came, fumbling. "No...well I mean...Um." Then died out again, somehow failing to bloom in the cool shade under the spreading juniper canopy. Riveh Geminus who had faced down mad halflings, alcoholic demons, armed bandits and Stig's morning breath was unsure where to begin. The consequences of his words were...more then a bit worrying.

A bumblebee buzzed past, marking the pause that was growing awkwardly long.

He coughed, "Martella Coufas and I are...." What were they anyway? Friends? Allies? Political partners? "An unexpected connection, Linked by bonds of family and circumstance." Riveh said the words labored and artificial. 'it is hard to explain but it isn't...well, it is not anything like that." Riveh finished lamely, finally managing to look directly at Trant for the first time.

Which left the bigger issue yet unsaid, because Riveh thought maybe he guessed why the woman had brought it up. One was usually only concerned with such entanglements if one was interested themselves....

"No, nothing like that." Riveh said more firmly, "It is much less satisfying and conventional then anything romantic." He finished, and then shut up.

If Trant wanted to dig this hole deeper, she would have to grab the shovel herself. Riveh wasn't helping.

For a woman used to both speak her mind and who clearly harbored some degree of affection towards him, Trant had done a not-uncommendable job of keeping her cool. Though terse, her simple question carried no resentment, no accusation of philandery - no small feat for the same person he once had to stop from stomping a vagrant to death in a fit of rage.

This restraint went out the proverbial window at his first utterance of denial.

"Oh, don't lie to me!" Indignity radiated from the noble features, blowing over the young man like windstorm through a burst door. She was, as ever, a proud creature. "Do me that courtesy at the very least."

As if nature itself conformed to her ire, a passing cloud darkened their corner of the park in accordance with her displeasure. The accompanying drop in temperature reflected her icy glare only too well, arms crossed in an image of condemnation the like of which Riveh hadn't experienced since Mrs. Lanfranc the schoolmistress had caught him fibbing. The old bat had had a gift for shaming her pupils. The difference between then and now, however, was that he knew himself to be perfectly without blame. And so, discouraging as the disapproving glare was, the ifrit maintained his innocence.

It took some repeating on his part, but, perhaps surprisingly, it wasn't long before anger was replaced with doubt, his every insistence picking away at the Dame's vexation like a Kustios stable boy working the knot out of a horse's mane.

"Oh. I... Oh."

And just like that she went from strict schoolmistress to stumped schoolgirl. He could practically see the anger buzzing away behind the reddening forehead like a wasp behind glass, lost, disoriented and trying to figure out who it could bite at now. Where in the world had she even gotten this idea from?

"B-because that oaf Stig said so!" she explained, just a bit desperately and happy to find a new target for her ire, anyone to blame but herself. "He called you her... 'bedwarmer', and... Well, you didn't protest!"

It took a bit for Riveh to recall any of this. Had this been when they left Oppara? "Moreover, you two were all sentimental and... touchy with each other. Why, she was practically holding back tears!"

Gender relations among Taldor's upper crust being what they were, punctilious and governed by a rigorous code of conduct, the ifrit supposed that his and Martella's conduct with each other - two unwed youths as they were - would be viewed as overly familiar. Unusual to be sure, but then their relationship was anything but usual. "Besides, you two are both... *sigh* I don't know, ethnic so I thought perhaps..."

Aaand there was that Taldan casual racism he had nearly forgotten since donning his alias.

Trant's hurried justification drew to a close as she leant forward and rested her flushed face in her hands. She didn't reemerge for some time. Riveh was left with birdsong, a gentle breeze rustling the leaves, and the stares of the nearby children wondering what in the world was going on with the two strangers. That, and low muttering from behind his companion's palms; something about murdering a certain other companion. The Dame let out a long breath. "I'm sorry."

It was a humbled Malphene, one ready to accept her losses, who looked up. "I didn't mean to accuse you of anything. And I didn't ask because I was jealous of her, I just... I thought that we had developed a rapport in Oppara. If you two were together, I couldn't understand why you wouldn't tell me. I felt... misled, that's all."

Was it? Was that all? It could be hard to tell with those who denied their own feelings; he still remembered how the woman had insisted that she followed him just to repay a debt. The ifrit found himself in shadow as she rose, seemingly nearly tripling in height and blotting out the sun.

"I don't suppose we can just forget this conversation happened?" she asked wryly in folding out her umbrella, turning to leave the park and probably eager to leave this travesty behind. Well, this had been an awfully short stroll.

And there it was.

Most of what Trant had said was understandable, even perhaps expected. Riveh had long learned to ignore Stig's more...colorful remarks, except perhaps to admire their artistry as creative endeavors. There was some facets to the man Riveh had not yet plumbed but his casual insults were nothing too take seriously. Still, for Trant, obviously they had been taken to heart.

As for the strange relationship between himself and Martella, well, he couldn't blame the noblewoman for that. Riveh himself didn't quite understand the strange bond between them, a mixture of guilt and release, pain and achievement. No wonder Trant was confused.

All forgivable, given the context of war, murder, death and family trauma. Riveh would have happily went along with Trant's suggestion of ignoring it all and continuing their walk...except for that one thing. That so small a thing.

Ethnic.

By Taldan standards, it was pretty mild. She hasn't called him subhuman or implied various faults due to his background. And yet, the fact that at her most vulnerable and confused Trant had resorted to such a phrase....well, to Riveh, it said a great deal about the woman.

Once a bully, always a bully?

Stiffly, Riveh rose to his feet.

"I think we should get going. There is obviously nothing in Pursa for us. I'll meet you back by the carriage." And with that, in a display of extreme rudeness, Riveh left the towering woman to the pleasantly manicured garden.

A beautiful day. Sun shining on vibrant greenery, clean garden paths, playing children. And on a Dame Malphene Trant, eyes wide and unblinking even in the bright light. No arrow-struck deer had ever looked so stunned, its gaze so blank and uncomprehending even as the life drained away from it.

Hopefully not so distant Meratt was blessed with similarly beautiful weather.

---

"His Lordship honors us with his presence," groused the decidedly not beautiful man, leaning up against the loaded carriage. "Waltzin' in to take charge after the menials finish the actual work. You're playin' the role of blue-blood to a f*ckin' tee, boy. Where's Mount C*nt?"

Stig didn't deign to look at him throughout this greeting, opting instead to ogle a passing servant girl far, far too young for him. The coach stood ready at Riveh's return to the Kustios compound. Silas the driver, rested and wholly recovered from his bellyful of crossbow bolt, stood on hand, primed to go at a moment's notice; the old man was a workhorse at least as reliable as his actual steeds. As for that pack, they too appeared amply prepared, tended as they were by a few stablehands on loan from the Baron. Even Factor-12 made only minimal fuss in being trussed onto the carriage roof together with the luggage.

The only thing missing was the Dame. And she remained so for the next good hour, finally trekking back into view only as the young lordling Marcus - evidently a bit confused at the holdup - came to bid them all adieu. At being asked to get ready for another long journey, she gave only a sullen, "Fine." The ifrit noted that she had returned sans umbrella.

"I wish you a safe and pleasant trip," said the Kustios heir to him in departure, once again displaying his eager and equally awkward enthusiasm. Here was a teenager who knew he had big shoes to fill, and sooner than anyone would like. "My uncle bids you forgive him; he is a bit under the weather and cannot see you off. But he - we - very much enjoyed your visit, and... well, I hope to... I hope we will work together for a fruitful Taldor in many years to come, Lord Betony!"

Two young lords coming into their own on the eve of a whole new nation; yes, hopefully they wouldn't find themselves on the opposite sides of that conflict. Said conflict was represented here as well: Manigold and Varinazzo, the two colleagues, bid him farewell with all due respect, and that was that. Well then. Onwards to Meratt and destiny.

It was a miserable evening in miserable... what was this place called again?

Mind you, the trip here hadn't been overly pleasant either. The much belabored Taldan road network had its ups and down, some very literal as the grass ocean of the Tandak Plains turned less placid and more stormy: the level land made way for more hills and valleys as they approached mighty Verduran. They could see the massive forest as a dark green ring about the horizon two day's brisk travel after leaving Prusa. The pavement improved somewhat too, indicating that they were reaching wealthier lands. And they hadn't been jumped by roving highwaymen. Riveh duly counted his blessings, however small.

But if prospects outside the rolling box were looking just a bit brighter, conditions within had turned dismal. His fallout with the Dame was felt over these two days, turning the air within the coach heavy as if they were riding a rolling sauna. It wasn't even as if she had reverted back to the abrasive aristocrat he'd first met. No, that might actually be preferable. Instead she was just sullen and silent as a gargoyle, not deigning him with a word beyond the strictly necessary. Even Stig could clearly tell that something was up, but had kept his broken beak of a nose away for now; he couldn't be bothered with what he no doubt perceived as the vagaries of moody children.

A haughty bully of a noblewoman, a "knight" more familiar with gutters than courts, and a condescending machine-spirit who seemed to view him as little more than animated spam. With friends like these...

Still, one should always be careful in bemoaning one's lot. After all, the common refrain reminded us that "it can always get worse." And boy, did it. They had arrived. More specifically, they had arrived in the hamlet of Stachys. His hamlet. Whether the township was named after the village or vice versa, this was his domain within the larger county of Meratt as new head of House Betony. And it was...

"Aw hells," moaned Stig beside him. "Place looks like the camp crapper after the 500-year war."

Yeah, that about summed it up. Gods above, the place was miserable. Unfamiliar as all of them were, Silas had coaxed the carriage to a halt in what passed for a town square, which was to say a patch of muddy dirt in the middle of an intersection, all unpaved. The houses - nay, hovels - that made up the small village were all, to a one, dilapidated images of ruin, all paint peeling, roofs sinking and shutters broken. Riveh stepped out of the coach and right into a wet pothole. Behind him even Trant had forgotten her glum self to gape at the sheer impoverishment on display. The grey evening only added to the misery. It looked like the set to some saccharine play about pauper children, and not the kind with a happy ending. It looked like the aftermath of a great recession, complete economic devastation laying waste to a nation, yet somehow localized entirely to this one simple country village.

And it all smelled of mildew.

Which followed, actually. Because as the ifrit had noted in driving here, while most of Meratt seemed to be fruitful farmland and forest, Stachys sat next to a swamp. An actual, sodden swamp. Aroden's ghost, what had he gotten himself into? His overworked mind immediately leapt at the thought of ghosts, for the place did have something of the air of a ghost town to it as well. Because while it boasted enough dwellings to house a respectably sized village - perhaps two hundred souls - Riveh had yet to see anyone here. Many of the wasting homes were clearly abandoned. Where was everyone? It was late spring; surely any agrarian society should be in full swing.

His eye followed his ear, hearing a squirt of spit land on soggy ground. An old gaffer of a man stood in a crooked doorway, scratching at a dirty beard whilst throwing him mistrustful glares. He wasn't alone. The Geminus saw them now, those few residents of Stachys that saw fit to bother with this clean, young lord, looking as he did like the proverbial pearl in the pigsty. They stood in doorframes, behind windows, in darkened alleys, all leering at him suspiciously, even fearfully. His subjects. None stepped forward to greet him but one.

Wet footsteps, quick on the short frame, were all that announced the woman. She emerged from a larger building here, dark wavy hair streaked with grey trailing behind her.

"Lord Riveh Betony I presume?" she called before she reached him, voice polite if cautious. "I hope you'll excuse me, I received no note of your arrival today... I am the honorary seneschal for the village, Onara Piscum. It is good to meet you."

Once stood before him, the woman made an attempt at a curtsy a moment too late, and Riveh immediately gleaned that this Piscum had never seen the inside of a noble court. Hers was a frame more accustomed to bending down for weeds than for lords. Even so, her aspect was civil, almost business-like, as if used to dealing with her betters. A commoner afforded some modicum of education perhaps? But if she was a commoner, why then did some base part of his mind register her as something strange, even alien?

"Welcome to Stachys, our... humble hamlet."

The understatement was punctuated by the croaking of an unseen crow.

The aura of failure, which had been chasing him ever since Pursa now settled on him with grim finality. Disappointment, bitterness and grim regret seemed his lot, along with being saddled with worse then worthless comrades.

And now, a new ingredient to the potent mix he had been brewing for himself, these last days. Pointlessness. This was the grand reward for his labors? This stinking, mildewing hamlet, half-sunk into mud was his birthright? Gods, was this really what he had spent his childhood dreaming of? A literal swamp.

Granted this was not all of his birthright, of course. All of Meratt was rightfully his, this Betony estate was just a minor subdivision. Still, it was properly Geminus land...worse, it was Betony land, which was the most he could (illegally!) claim. An inauspicious start tot he grand project of family renewal and reclamation.

Riveh sighed internally, doing his best to keep such feelings from his face. Even with things as they were, it would not do to let this Piscum see his utter and sudden disillusion. Maybe she would take what she could see for simple weariness from a traveler? or perhaps the residents of this benighted village were used to it, by now.

"I am Lord Betony," Riveh said, doing his best to no wrinkle a nose at the fetid stink from the noxious mud puddle, slowly invading his boot. "I am sorry for the lack of notification, we have been traveling quickly. We are headed toward Lotheedar of course, but naturally we wish to stop here for the night."

Riveh glances around, nervous at pretending to be someone he isn't. Also niggling....should he ask about this place? Was something wrong? To Riveh, who had more then a passing resemblance to rural areas there was a great deal wrong here but was it proper to just baldly ask why their homeland was an abandoned reeking pigsty?

Probably not.

Riveh instead coughed and asked, "Can we get someone to guide us to the estate? I assume the manor home is still, err, accessible?" Riveh suddenly had a horrid thought. Twenty years since his supposed distant relative passed away. Had the supposed noble home sank into the mud? Good god would he have to stay in this hamlet somewhere?

Right there, standing in a rotting cesspool he vowed to camp in the ruins, if it came to that.

Ah, he understood now. It took a bit for Riveh to figure it out, this nagging sensation of something off, even wrong, about the seneschal - his seneschal, he reminded himself. But it all fell into place at the first sight of pointed ears behind the greying hair, half pulled back in a practical knot. She had elven blood, this Piscum. Small wonder his mind registered her as strange, then. The mind always rebelled at contradictions, consciously or otherwise, and seeing the ageless features of the fair folk touched by time qualified as one such paradox, something nature never intended. To Riveh's eye, Piscum - somewhat broader in aspect than any elf - looked to be in her mid fifties. What this amounted to in true years, he could only guess at; the aging process of the elf-blooded was notoriously fickle, much like the elves themselves. Even so, to see the lines about his steward's face was like seeing wrinkles and liver spots on a child. It was disquieting, something that did not belong, incongruous and wrong.

Should he count himself lucky that he had some experience with the alien? An onset of dull pain within the ifrit's head followed the mere thought of impossible geometry and unknowable presences, the things he had seen, the entities he had entreated to be here today. Was this as far as eldritch bargains reached today? A run-down old dung pit like Stachys?

"Lotheedar?" The simple repetition of his assertion brought the Geminus from the grotesque back to the merely grody. "Oh yes, of course. The Count's inauguration ball."

The woman made no further comment to the swift departure of the first Betony here in two decades, merely awaiting her Lord's word. There was something curiously professional in her conduct, like something Riveh would expect from an achieve curator or the like, a skilled hand not easily replaced, a mistress of her own domain, deferential but not subservient. A rare stance in anyone dressed as a plain peasant. Still, she was wary. The back might stand straight, yet the eyes did not look into his.

"Can we get someone to guide us to the estate? I assume the manor home is still, err, accessible?"

"Oh, it is that, my Lord," came the nodding reply. "In the absence of your line, I have been the estate's caretaker. I hope it will do for a night's rest. Will you follow me? We may walk, it is not far."

In response, Stig hopped up onto their coach with the ease of a mangy cat and plopped himself down next to Silas. "Follow the old bird," he mumbled, evidently not willing to walk the mudtrails that passed for streets here, not with an alternative at hand. Trant was quick to follow, her footwear predictably not being up to the task.

If Piscum took any offence at this, she didn't show it. And regardless of transportation, it was a short distance as promised. They left the misery and mistrustful eyes of Stachys square behind, heading for the eastern edge of town. Here the meanness was much the same, though the land was not. Where the western half of the hamlet was all stinking swamp, here Riveh saw hills and forest. Healthier soil too, as his now drying hosiery gratefully told him. Water only being able to run down, the marsh had not claimed much of the more elevated land here. It was here, at the top of one such low hill, that he saw it.

"This is the Betony estate, Sir."

Well, this wasn't nearly as bad as he'd feared. Standing proud above them, the Betony ancestral home was as classical a country manor house as Taldor had ever produced. Not the opulent summer palace of any king, nor the avant-garde architecture of the nouveau riche, it was as Taldan as jubilee pie, a proper piece of history beyond any fashion trend. Granted, its grey brick facade was covered in ivy, reaching all the way to the top story, but the roof appeared whole, every shuttered window secure. Riveh had been disappointed often enough lately to know not to ask for more. Heck, its comparatively humble size was probably a blessing too. Would he know what to do with some grand mansion? While more than ample enough for his purposes, the Betony estate trod that careful line between wealth and rural sensibilities that defined 'old money'. This place had been host to patched tweed jackets and pheasant hunts, not high fashion and orgies.

All of which made the tower look so very out of place. For at the eastern side of this edifice to Taldan traditionalism stood a ruined stone tower, taller than its two stories, and seemingly incorporated into the building. Or was it the other way round? It looked old, older than the house, a solemn pillar completely without windows. The lack of any debris on the grounds - not to mention the unmarred surface of the house - led the ifrit to think it hadn't collapsed in the last two decades without Betony leadership. Its jagged edges reached above the roof like clawed fingers into the grey evening.

"I do hope you and yours will have a restful night here, my Lord," the seneschal repeated herself in digging out a hefty key for the locked gate surrounding the admittedly very much overgrown estate grounds. "Especially after your long travels. If not, I'm sure I can manage some accommodations in the village."

Surely that wouldn't be necessary. What, was the place missing some extra bedsheets or something?

"No, Sir. It's haunted."

It is a testament to Riveh's current mood that he takes this latest news with equaniminty. Of course it was haunted. It not being haunted would have been convienent and useful, so there was no way the current universe would allow it.

Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 18
Well I'll be

"I...see." Riveh said, suddenly uneasy at being judged by his strange, slightly alien 'subject'. "Haunted..." Riveh surveys the overgrown but still well-kept manor home. Apart from the out of place tower (which suited being haunted just fine) it looked rather..prosaic for a trysting place of the damned undead.

Riveh also paused for a moment because he was unsure quite how to adress Piscum. Did she have a formal title? She had said honorary seneschal. Was there some irregulairty? Something with her mixed blood stasus? Riveh's own current rift with Trant welled up in his mind, but he forced it away. Focus on the matter at hand.

"For being haunted, it seems well kept enough. Windows shut, roof seems sound, doors latched. Clearly you weel safe enough to enter it sometimes....What exactly is the nature of the, er, haunting?" Riveh said, trying to sound offhand about the whole thing, as if this was just another day in the life of a busy noble.

Riveh glanced at Stig and Trant, curious for their reactions to the news of possible undead.

A haunting in what was to be his own home for the next several months? Would the trials & tribulations of Riveh - Geminus or Betony - never cease? Looking over to his companions (excluding the one still trussed on the carriage roof with much of the luggage), they too were less than thrilled at this revelation. Although in the case of the Dame, she did not receive the news with his composure.

"What, like ghosts?" she demanded to know, blonde brow knitted in consternation and usually so strong voice betraying some unease. Oh my. Dame Trant, was that some girlish fear of ghoulies Riveh detected in the bullish noblewoman? Or was this merely a practical concern over facing a foe that could be neither bullied nor beaten? Either response was perfectly fair, he supposed.

As for the knight still perched up on the coach next to a visibly troubled Silas, he merely sighed and scratched at his increasingly unkempt beard.

"I hate killin' grave dodgers. It's like mountin' a whore with her previous punter still leakin' out of her; no fun when the damage's already done."

The poetry society of Taldor would never know what a master they had lost in Stig. As charming a mental image his simile conjured, it was evidently not to Trant's liking who scrunched up her face in disgust. "Oh, for...! Stop that! Stop being so... foul! Gods!"

On the topic of composure, it was perhaps a credit to the seneschal that she maintained her own at the conduct of her Lord's retinue. Beyond a raising of the eyebrows, Piscum simply stood by, ready to serve like the professional she evidently was. Now that the ifrit thought about it, she had never even questioned him on who his companions were, or indeed anything else. Was he still being evaluated, he wondered? Regardless, she held true to her deferential demeanor and answered his query.

"Lord Betony is right to ask me to clarify," she began, directed to Stig and Trant, quick as both had been to their own conclusions, "for no, I don't believe it is the restless dead that haunt the estate. I only know that something resides here."

The heavy-lidded eyes - of a bright cyan not afforded any true human, Riveh now noted - landed on him. "The villagers believe that it is your grandaunt's ghost that roams here, but I put no credence in this. Lady Betony died peacefully in her sleep, so I cannot imagine that her spirit wouldn't find rest. In life, however..." Piscum paused, seemingly unsure how best to convey this tale. "Aliss... Lady Betony was an unusual soul, even as a child. She was the sweetest girl you'd ever met, but would often speak to people who weren't there, as if invisible. Her 'special friends' she called them. Though she carried her good temperament into adulthood, this practice of hers remained as well, despite harsh reprimand from both parents and peers. No one could deter her. As you can imagine, she quickly fostered a reputation as being... not entirely reliable. Her stranger convictions only grew with age, and she lived her last decade a near total recluse. She never married, as you know."

This certainly fit with what Riveh had heard of the woman from old Baron Kustios: Aliss Betony had been a complete nutter. Or so polite society had deemed her. And yet. Was the Betony estate vindicating the woman posthumously? And was he going to be caught in whatever unearthly exoneration raged here?

"All of this is to say that I don't know what haunts the manor," Piscum concluded, just a bit pensively. "But given the evidence, I wonder whether Lady Betony wasn't done a great injustice."

What evidence would that be? "Well, for one... I'm ashamed to say it, my Lord, but some years back a few villagers attempted to loot the house. They did not get far. Even if I believed their fright the result of superstition or wild imagination, their bruises could not be so easily explained. I questioned them. They never saw their attacker. And for another... well..."

She looked up to the manor house. From its position on top of the hill, it overlooked the village, its domain, watching over it as surely as any lord who might reside there. "You complemented me on my caretaking of the premises, Sir. I deserve no such praise. For I walk the grounds and enter the foyer on a monthly basis - just to check for squatters, you see. But I dare not go further. The house... it maintains itself."

A cold wind rustled its way through the overgrown grass, and Riveh beat back his ear's inclination to hear a whisper in it.

Even by Stig's very subsided standards, that remark was quite pungent. Riveh raised an eyebrow and wondered, not for the first time, what Piscum made of his little gaggle of attendants. Surely a normal noble's retinue was not quite so...earthy? Still, what could he do? trying to reign Stig in would just make the old knight delight in reaching deeper into his ale-house wordhoard. Best to let it slide, unfortunately.

At Piscum's words about the ghosts the young ifrit turns thoughtful, rubbing his chin. Ghosts that clean up after themselves? That sounded oddly....mindful? That didn't sound like the ravening mindless undead that clerics warned about, those that turned cemeteries into heaving landscapes of shuffling, hungry maws. No, this seemed quite different.

After all, anyone who could clean, could be reasoned with.

"Interesting." Riveh says, still pondering his supposed ancestral home. "And have not witnessed any of these beings yourself? Still, I suppose I am in their debt. They have preserved the family honor and legacy better then I hoped."

Riveh looked up at the sun and then back at the somewhat disquieting house.

"Well, shall we knock and introduce ourselves?" Riveh says to the group at large. "I'm not going to wait on the lawn for the ghosts to come out."

"Sir?"

The ability to surprise one's elders was a delight inherent to the young, and if Riveh's suspicions held true, the elf-blooded woman had quite a few decades over him. Nevertheless, she was surprised when he not only insisted on them making introductions with the supposed specters, but led the charge on the house himself. No doubt softer lordlings of his generation were expected to have a hard man at hand (someone fitting Stig's description, mayhap) to deal with any situation below his own station, whether in deed or dignity. On this point, he wondered briefly in stepping past the simple stone fence, it of the trusting country variety more so intended to deter livestock than any determined intruder, what was to be the reputation of his alias? Who was Lord Riveh Betony? The Princess had asked him to be benevolent, to represent her own dream of a better aristocracy for a better Taldor. Whatever his plans, the ifrit knew he had just set the first brushstroke to painting the Betony heir as a man of action.

"We're doin' this then?" the knight asked atop his perch, eyeing the manor like it was the cave lair of a kobold tribe or some such beastie over which victory could be too costly to even attempt. He spat and followed his own crud in skipping down from the carriage with an agility that belied his years.

"Lissen up," he went on, drawing his sword in following Riveh. "I've killed some shamblers too stupid to stay dead before. Don't mind whatever ghost stories you've pissed yourselves to - old bones break 'n rotten flesh tears, just the same as anyone else. If the dead really have risen here, they can be put down again. But if it's some floatin' spirit f*cks we're dealin' with - back from the dead in a huff over lost pride, or their ghost cocks not workin', or some other bull' - I'm fleeing and I suggest you follow. Need a holy man to snuff that. And I ain't him."

Was this Stig's attempt at mentoring his young companions? Encouraging them, even? If so, Riveh didn't know what was more pathetic: that this was the best he could manage, or that the Dame actually appeared to be following raptly. She had paused in donning her breastplate to listen, brow still very serious. If Trant was willing to hear advice from the old tough, then she really was more rattled than she let on, certainly more than she'd ever admit. Should Riveh be more nervous himself, he wondered? Perhaps, but the idea of domestic ghosts tempered any such fear. Just how terrible could a specter that did the dishes truly be?

A question soon to be answered, he supposed. The brief stint through a garden path nearly vanished to the unkempt grounds had led him to the not unsizeable porch with front door. Both were in fair condition assuming two decades of neglect. Excepting the ivy climbing the grey brick facade, everything seemed in order; the sturdy hinges showed only little sign of rust, and - why - even the paint on the door had a healthy sheen to it, as if newly applied.

"My lord? May I?"

Having silently decided to follow her liege, Piscum now offered to unlock the door. She was proving reliable so far. This gave the ifrit time to consider the curious door knocker fastened there, a worthy endeavor. For it gave him the strangest sense of deja vu. It took him a second to recognize what it was fashioned as, aided by his interest in stargazing of all things. It was a comet in copper, its burning tail curved to adhere to a hinge so that the 'head' of the flaming meteor could knock against the wood, its mock impact crater. Another second had him realize where he had seen this imagery before: it was on his left hand at this very moment. The Betony signet ring also featured a shooting star.

Before Riveh could consider this - certainly no coincidence - the door silently swung open. The area he looked into was a large foyer, larger still for how empty it was. What furniture there was had all been pushed aside and covered in canvas (he made a concerted effort not to think of these as burial shrouds). It was high-ceilinged, rising up to the second story in fact through a handsome stairway. It was also dark, of course, near pitch-black. There was no moon visible tonight, not that the shuttered window would let any light in regardless. None of this was a concern to his supernatural sight, however. It allowed him to survey what little there was to see freely. His eyes roved the walls first. They were half paneled, half white washed, a very classic design; his earlier impression of 'old money' sensibilities held true. The place had a certain understated, genuine class all the gold in the world not only couldn't buy, but outright precluded. Of greater interest was that these opened in every direction to different rooms. None of the doors here were closed.

"Doesn't smell like death," Stig said, snorting at the air.

The ifrit had to concur. If anything he took heart in how he couldn't smell any sign of damp. That boded well for their living situation here. Assuming they weren't all murdered by ghosts within the next few minutes, of course. Thinking that he might as well choose the scene of his death, he took another few steps inside, inspecting where the many doorways led. His shoes sounded loud against the uncarpeted floor, the dust doing little to dull his footsteps. Let's see... dining room, kitchen, a bathroom, what had to be a drawing room, and a few more whose intended purpose he couldn't ascertain with all their furniture draped. Where were the living dead most likely to lair?

"My lord?"

He turned to Onara Piscum, she still standing by the front door after a thorough examination of one particular corner. "I left a lantern here on my last visit. It's gone."

Haunted by something indeed.

Riveh listened to Stig with interest and even, despite the obvious seriousness, a bit of amusement. So he had finally found the old knight's red line? Incorporeal ghosts? Then again, an enemy who you couldn't even touch did sound like a problem. Running away seemed like a fair solution although Riveh wasn't sure how it would look to be run out of his own, supposed ancestral estate.

Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6

Riveh was intrigued by the astronomy-themed artwork, and took some comfort from it. Even if he was not really a Betony, it seemed to fit that the his own fate from beyond the stars was here, tangled up in this mission of lies and deceit.

The ifrit pondered the dark, oddly comfortable rooms. He wasn't sure what he expected, but so far the manor home seemed little more then a well-kept Taldan rural estate, rather understated and tasteful. For everything people said about Aliss Betony, she had at least decent taste in interior design. As far as the ghosts....their effect seemed underwhelming. Indeed, the whole home had more the feeling of a quiet vacation home then a haunted mausoleum. A place waiting, then deserted.

When Piscum mentions the lantern, Riveh is forced to chuckle again, the noise sounded odd in the quiet, dark foyer. Again, the cleaning ghosts. So tidy. What did they do with the dust and unwanted items like lanterns? Did they manage a midden somewhere?

"Curious." Riveh says, still looking around. A thought enters his mind, "Are we sure it is ghosts, after all? Such cleanliness seems...out of character. Perhaps it is some other creature that moved in. Some overly helpful tribe of fey, perhaps?" Riveh jokes but is half serious. This place didn't feel like undead, not that the ifrit had any experience outside of stories.

But could it be something...or someone else?

"Shall we venture further? What first, do you think. The drawing room?" Riveh took one step then paused. Perhaps this was the wrong approach, venturing around like unsure visitors.

Riveh straightened up, head held high. In a firm but not shouting voice he declared, "Hark! Whatever abides here still, be it spirit, man or other creature, reveal yourself! We are not thieves or vandals. I am the rightful lord and master of this manor and the lands around. We promise to do no harm unless attacked ourselves."

It wasn't much of a speech but Riveh had his reasons for being circumspect. Still, he hadn't lied...exactly.

Also...hark? What was he, a herald for the Third Army of Exploration? Still, saying 'oh hello', to undead specters of an unsettled past seemed unfitting.

"Curious. Are we sure it is ghosts, after all? Such cleanliness seems... out of character. Perhaps it is some other creature that moved in. Some overly helpful tribe of fey, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," Piscum nodded, apprehension fluttering behind her otherwise so composed self. "I would think it more likely than Lady Aliss returning from the dead. As I said, I don't believe it is her ghost that wanders here. Though an infestation of fey doesn't sound much preferable."

Was it preferable, Riveh had to wonder? Stories abounded of the mercurial nature of the fey, and if even half of them were true, ghosts might actually make for better house mates. At least one knew where one stood with restless spirits. Though Stig might have phrased it crudely, he wasn't wrong; ghosts supposedly dug their heels to this earthly realm due to some great attachment. That was easy enough to understand, even empathize with. Fey on the other hand were just as likely to paint one's cows green for a lark as steal your firstborn. And then exchange it for a particularly fancy hat. There was no planning around them.

With this in mind, the ifrit reasoned, mayhap the best approach was figuring out what they were dealing with. Let his foes reveal themselves. So it was that he puffed out his chest like he owned the place (which was exactly the case), and made his emphatic declaration with all the assertiveness he could muster.

It didn't result in much. Nothing but his own faint echo stirred in the dark, nothing except the Dame who was terribly startled at the sudden call breaking the otherwise rather oppressive silence. She glared daggers at him now, jaw tense as the sinews of any Kustios horse. But as for answers to his summons, the house provided none. All remained still.

"Well," Stig drawled after a moment's quiet in which all ears anticipated the worst. "I suppose we were never goin' to sneak up on..."

His next words were drowned out. For the house answered after all. The most terrible cacophony burst forth, discordant and low, so distorted that Riveh nearly didn't recognize it for what it was: a piano in torture. The clamor had erupted from a room to their left, dark and aggressive like cannon fire in a thunder storm. Piscum gasped in shock. It sounded like someone just took an anvil to the keys.

No silence followed, the strings of the instrument still reverberating with the slowly dying clamor.

Riveh raises an eyebrow at the rather unpleasant sound that fills the slightly dusty air. "Well, they can clean but aren't very good musicians. Maybe they are inviting us to play." The ifrit pauses and glances at Stig, "Let me guess, you are a maestro? Play us a few sonatas with the ghosts?"

For all his light tone, Riveh does feel his heart pick up a pace however. Clearly someone was here, waiting and perhaps watching. Smashing a piano wasn't proof of magical power but it had been an awfully prompt response. Maybe it really was some sort of undead.

Still, there was little gained by standing around and chattering.

Coughing and a bit more serious, "We have not been warned off. Let us go on." Carefully but leading the way, Riveh makes his way toward the left hand room, toward the faintly dying echoes of the piano noise.

"How about I beat on that hollow brain box o' yours? See what music that makes?"

The mockery was strained, on both ends, but Riveh was pretty sure it had been the right call. The knight answered his gibe in turn, lightening the heavy air turned heavier, in truth responding to an order of no surrender in the affirmative. Commands or cheers to defy the unknown only served to validate any fears; levity on the other hand took the sting out of it. Did Stig know this, or did the thug just default to insult in their every interaction? Riveh was actually inclined to believe the former.

So it was that though everyone present - everyone visibly present - looked just a bit more rattled, no one faltered. Following their supposed lord's lead, everyone took another few careful steps into the barren foyer. Piscum and Trant seemed reticent to leave the escape route of the still open front door, lagging somewhat behind. The Dame held out her sword in a tense two-handed grip. Stig meanwhile, likely not willing to be shown up by a 'blue-blooded brat' or some such, followed the ifrit into the room with the still moaning piano.

The room - it was a bit curious. Riveh found the source, or at the very least the means, of the clamor immediately: although still covered in its protective white canvas, the big block set up against one wall could only be an upright piano. It groaned still, a dying D major that cast a dismal, funerial tone over their intrusion here. It didn't help the mood. But the room - such a curiously high ceiling. With rounded edges at that, giving one almost the sensation of a dome. And the draped furniture; some of it was recognizable as sizeable seating, but other sheets stood so tall, were so strangely shaped that he couldn't guess at what they hid. Was that a harp, he realized at one such shape? The subsequent note of something like hefty curtain hangers high up on the walls made it all fall into place: tapestries were meant to be hung there, specifically to dampen the reverberations. And the ceiling was designed for acoustics. This was that most urbane of aristocratic entertainment spaces, a music room.

"Hnmf. Empty," Stig grumbled beside him.

And yes, it appeared empty. No ghost, ghoul or even goblin in sight. Should he be relieved?

The strings of the piano finally ceased their mournful oscillation. All was still again. My, but silence could be so much more oppressive than any blare.

"Sir..." Piscum began, carefully. Almost as if on cue, she was was interrupted. The Dame screamed.

Riveh turned to see a giant ghost, a billowing figure in white, flailing about in the foyer as if death by drowning was the trauma that anchored its cursed image to this world. The next second he recognized that he was seeing Trant thrash around underneath one of the canvas sheets.

"Get it off me, get it off me!" she called even in swinging her sword about wildly, the hefty weapon nearly taking the head off the half-elf as the latter came to her aid. "My lady, calm down, please!"

It was a very agitated Trant that came into view as Piscum managed to yank the offending canvas off her. She glared in every direction with glowing eyes, searching for her attacker, though whether to retaliate or know what to flee from Riveh couldn't say. He had seen the Dame nearly stomp a man in death in a rage at the first sign of bodily harm to herself. He knew she did not take well to stress. Anger battled anxiety behind the blonde brow.

"It leapt at me! Damn it, Riveh, it leapt at me!" she almost yelled in what very nearly sounded like a furious defense, as if he had accused her of draping herself with the material. A handsome chair over which it had previously covered now stood bare. Yet before he could manage more than a word, all fell silent. Something moved.

Footsteps. They all heard them. Of course they did. How could they not, sounding as they did like they belonged to some giant, some elephantine soldier of legend? It came from above. Though the house was solidly built, these stomps - slow and plodding - were plainly heard from the second story. In fact, they were getting louder. The ifrit realized why: they were heading for the staircase, for them. More stomps. Then nothing. They stopped there. All eyes lifted to the top of the stairs.

Nothing. Just darkness, even for the ifrit who knew with some regret that he would have to step closer for his magical sight to pierce the shadows.

Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (13) + 3 = 16

Riveh's eyes quickly make out the gentle depressions in the (oddly light) layer of dust over the otherwise hale wooden floor. Footprints...cat footprints. Interesting. So no ghost evidence yet just a wandering feline flitting across the keys, perhaps startled by his voice?

The ifrit was just about to smugly suggest , again, that their was no ghosts when Madame Trant entirely loses her cool as a canvas sheet supposedly attacks her. The towering woman overcome by a bedsheet? Riveh, still smarting from their recent disagreement, allowed himself a sneer.

"Madame Trant, control yourself." The young man said, rather sternly. He glanced at Piscum to see if his so-called seneschal recognized the name.

Before he could go on, a new sound filled the room. Not another badly played instrument but footprints, heavy ones. This was no startled cat or even herd of cats. This was *boots* or at least very large feet tramping above. And yet....did ghosts make such noises?

Riveh peered at the rather ominous darkened steps that climbed into unknown darkness, the air rich with the scents of dust, mildew and stale air. Still, there was nothing for it but to face the maker of the footsteps.

Slowly, with more care now, Riveh took the first step, gazing upward like a supplicant seeking truth at a high altar.

No, near as he could tell Onara Piscum the elf-blooded villager had never heard of Malphene Trant the aristocrat. Of course, these things weren't so simple to infer in the flurry of the former dodging sword blows in tugging a sheet of the latter. As near as Riveh could tell, however, his seneschal offered no particular reaction to the mention of one of Taldor's more notable families.

The Dame's murderous glare in response to his reproof, on the other hand? There was no missing that.

It was almost fortunate that their collective attention was drawn elsewhere immediately afterwards. What was this? What manner of brute was this that stomped - ponderously, with the deliberation and heft of a manacled ogre - on the floor above them? Worse still, what was its intent in trampling their way? For the steps were heading towards the stairwell. Almost surprising himself, Riveh's mind leapt from ghost stories to the fairy tales of his childhood, where ever-inquisitive children strayed from home to enter the domains of hulking mountain men, even the fortresses of cloud giants. Not all such tales had a happy ending. Sometimes the storyteller was all too eager to impart cautionary lessons onto his impressionable audience. The ifrit remembered the foolhardy little boy whose tale ended in a giant's pot. The moral of the story: curiosity came at a price. This was his impression now, as the heavy footfalls grew closer: that they had awoken the master of the house, and his lumbering gait would conclude with punishment for all naughty boys & girls.

Except no giant or ghost was master of this house. He was. Hell, he had the papers (falsified or otherwise) to prove it. And so it was that Riveh stepped up to the stairwell, peering up to its darkened zenith with his supernatural sight. He would confront whatever monstrosity dwelled here.

Nothing. The footsteps had come to their trudging halt at the top of the stairs, of this he was quite sure. And yet as he looked up the handsome stairway, the shadows delineating themselves in black and gray to his more than human eyes, no one stood there. It was empty. Really now, what was going on in this place?

A question that only grew more mystifying in the next second. Because the nearest piece of furniture to him - a covered side table or some such - suddenly jerked loudly against the hardwood floor. And then flung itself at him.

Initiative (Malphene): 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (14) + 0 = 14
Initiative (Onara): 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (4) + 0 = 4
Initiative (Riveh): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (12) + 7 = 19
Initiative (Stig): 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 2 + 2 = 15

Surprise attack, coffee table vs flat-footed Riveh: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Surprise attack, coffee table vs flat-footed Riveh: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24
Damage: 1d6 ⇒ 5

"F*ckin' hell!"

Riveh almost didn't hear the knight's swear over the crack of the evidently quite sturdy side table catching him in the cheek. He spun at the impact, pain blooming in his face and yet still secondary to trying to understand what in the world just happened. It got weirder. For as his head spun with the projectile, he saw where it landed. Or rather, didn't land. The table had launched itself at him, trailing its protective cloth like the tail of a comet. And now it suddenly stood still in the air, as if an invisible hand had caught it mid-flight. Just as suddenly, said invisible individual threw it at him again. This time it crashed into his shoulder, hard, only to clatter to the floor.

At least it hadn't landed on his foot.

Surprise trip combat maneuver vs flat-footed Riveh: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21

But something else was at play there. Without warning he felt a powerful tug at his ankle, yanking one foot back and sending him sprawling to the ground. Within two seconds he had been smacked twice and knocked flat. The ifrit gawked in every direction. No one; if this attack could be attributed to any one assailant, they did not make themselves known. Worse still was that it was still ongoing.

"Ah!"

Attack, chair vs flat-footed Trant: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (4) + 5 = 9

Attack, canvas vs flat-footed Stig: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24

Riveh saw how more furniture, the same chair whose sheet had leapt at the Dame, went careening at her, actually shattering against her breastplate with its sheer velocity. Stig meanwhile got the same treatment as she had earlier; he cursed up a storm beneath the cloth that suddenly enveloped him. Madness. There were no attackers. The furniture was just flinging itself at them. In seeing her back away, clearly at a loss, the ifrit thought back to Piscum's assertion about the manor. The house maintained itself, she had said. Was it protecting itself as well?

Riveh lay on the dusty floor, sprawled face up, as if he was about to settle in for a long night of star gazing. But instead of nature's wonder and majesty, all he could see was the dingy plaster of the living room ceiling. More then a few spiderwebs too.

Even laid out as he was, Riveh felt a bit of...absurd amusement. Attacked by flying furniture! It seemed quite funny...until Riveh heard the clang of wood on metal and saw Trant's breastplate crack under a blow. It occurred to Riveh that furniture, doubly so this nice well-made stuff, tended to be heavy.

This was actually quite dangerous. being crushed by a flying table might be unusual, but it would be just as deadly as any spear or rock. Whatever ghost or ghoul was controlling this was apparently quite intent on doing some damage.

Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (15) + 3 = 18
However, laying flat did give one an unusual perspective and thus, Riveh was able to see, hiding under a table...a cat. And a cat quite unbothered by the noise, movement and flying furniture. Not just some random stray then.... Was this the same feline who had played the piano? Could this be a lookout for some wizard or being, a familiar conduit for this furnishing assault?

Or could it be the cat itself?

Riveh flopped onto his stomach and, staring at the cat roared, "You! Cat! Call it off!" the ifrit waves his hand in what he hoped was a threatening gesture. And then charged toward it, hoping that breaking it's concentration might provide a respite from hurtling upholstery.

Not sure what to roll, Riveh doesn't actually want to attack the cat, at least at first. Rather chase it away or disturb it's concentration

"Cat?! What are you talking about?!" roared Trant.

Even over the noise that had erupted in the foyer - yelling, furniture crashing against wall and floor, Stig's swearing - Riveh heard the clatter of the cat's claws skidding on the hardwood, so startled was it at his outburst. If not for the situation he might have laughed, seeing the black feline literally jump at his approach, massive green eyes turning larger still, and paws sliding in a ineffectual jig as they vied for purchase. Then it bolted. He saw its tail disappear somewhere inside what he had taken for a drawing room.

This didn't actually help. Not much, anyway, he noted in seeing a hefty umbrella stand rising up into the air. His working theory of the cat being somehow responsible for this wasn't debunked quite yet. It was just that there was more than one of them.

The knight managed to yank the offending cloth off himself and looked about the mayhem, supremely miffed. "I see 'em," he huffed.

Perception (Stig): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

Unless there were more he'd missed, Riveh spied three cats. One he had run off, but another remained in a corner by the entrance, bright orange in the darkness. He had no idea how none of them had spotted it until now. Another stood at the top of the stairs, half-hiding in the darkness; again, he was quite sure it hadn't been there just a second ago. This one was longhaired and grey, dusty really, with a squashed face that seemed to regard him with disdain. Both sat on their hindquarters. Both stared at them.

The ifrit didn't know if the old thug agreed with his assessment or if he acted out of a lack of other options, but Stig advanced on one of the felines - the tiger-striped one - steel at the ready. Trant wasn't far behind.

Perception (Trant): 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (17) + 3 = 20

"Wh...? Cats?! What do you mean...?! Seriously?!"

With the knight on one of their foes, the Dame leapt forward against the other, all earlier hesitation gone. Dodging underneath the flying umbrella stand, she rushed past Riveh to trundle up the stairs, nearly clearing them in one. She was quite a bit faster in that armor of hers than he remembered. Their attacker (attackers?) did not stand idly, however.

Trip maneuver vs Stig: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

Attack vs Trant: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (19) + 5 = 24
Damage: 2d6 ⇒ (2, 3) = 5

It was near imperceptible, but Riveh thought he just caught the blue eyes of the grey cat look past the encroaching Trant to lock onto Stig below. Just as suddenly the knight's leg jerked backwards, sending him flailing to the floor much like he himself had. This allowed the orange little tiger - otherwise backed into a corner - to flee Stig, actually stepping on the splayed man in making its escape. It in turn looked up at Trant. A creaking above had him turn his own head in the same direction. A hefty grandfather clock at the top of the staircase tipped and came crashing down. Trant was in its collision course. Were the two cats looking out for each other, Riveh realized?

The cabinet clock made an ungodly noise in smashing against every step of the staircase in its gravity assisted journey to the floor. It would have taken the Dame with it if she hadn't grabbed onto the railing at the last second, enduring a terrible blow to her legs, but remaining upright.

Combat goes on! There are three cats, though the one you scared is out of sight. The other two are now in the foyer (that'd be orange tabby cat) and at the top of the stairs (grey longhair). Riveh can't reach either with a plain 30 ft. movement, although a charge could probably reach Orange. Double move to reach Grey on account of the stairs.

Ambushed! By a cat. No, not by a cat but by a....what was a group of cats called anyway? A herd? A flock? A coven? No matter what you called them, clearly this group was formidable enough.

The main question was, were they working alone? Stories of talking, thinking animals flitted through Riveh's mind. Most of them children's tales but such things did exist, they said. Awakened beasts, or the reverse, humans turned into animals by spell or curse. Was that what they were dealing with? Or were the cats merely vessels of some other power? Conduits for some witch or wizard?

Still, answers would have to wait till the fight was over. And a fight it was, made clear by the smashing clanging racket of the falling cabinet clock. Trant would be lucky if her legs weren't broken....

Or would answers have to wait?

Riveh focused on the gray, long haired cat at the top of the stairs. It looked like some sort of mangy lion, looking down at a plain full of prey. What was going on here?

Riveh reached into that hidden arcane reserve, that well given to him by the space between spaces. And he bent his will upon the small feline creature.

Casting Brain Drain!

Will save: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (12) + 5 = 17
Dammit.

It was the strangest sensation, trying to grab hold of another's mind with your own. Almost like bobbing for eels in a tub of soap grease with your brain acting as said tub. It felt, in a word, weird. Far worse was the knowledge that he, perhaps due to inexperience with this particular power of his, was failing. Riveh could feel the reached for thoughts, slippery and writhing, squirm from his mental grasp. Drat.

The dusty cat, his intended victim, was nevertheless clearly spooked. The perpetual frown of the squashed little face only deepened, but there was obvious surprise as it looked about from its perch, like a snooty king on his throne, searching for who dared strike at its mind. The blue eyes landed on the ifrit, and he could not help but think the puss looked downright offended. Which actually fit his hypothesis. His power might have failed, but it hadn't been a complete wash; Riveh had wondered if these felines were more than mere beasts, and he was now almost certain this was indeed the case. His power confirmed as much. He might not have probed deep into the cat's chassis, but he had nevertheless brushed against its psyche, felt the shape of its mind. His power wouldn't have had anything to latch onto without some intelligent thought; these felines sported intellects different, though not necessarily lesser to his own.

Would his allies appreciate this?

"I'm gonna skin these little sh*ts!"

Stig, felled by a telekinetic tug, rose to his feet with a speed that belied his age. Also contradictory was his stratagem; although obviously very annoyed, he did not charge the nearest cat in a rage. Instead he unceremoniously let his sword clatter to the floor and reached for the bow at his back, perhaps recognizing that their foes would not let him get close so easily.

Trant was not so versatile, however. As soon as she recovered from taking the careening cabinet clock to the shins, the Dame trundled onward up the stairs, sword held high. To Riveh's eye she was, if anything, invigorated by the blow, eager to pay it back in kind. In seconds she reached the top, towering over the long-haired cat, towering further still with the mighty blade that she brought onto it with a heaving overhead swing.

Trant attack vs gray cat: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12

Well, there went the floorboard finish. It was no kitten, but the dusty-looking tomcat had nevertheless leapt aside from the sword now dug into the flooring. At least it didn't look quite so condescending now that it had been forced from its sitting position. In fact, it backed further away from the noblewoman with... well, cat-like reflexes, denying her the opportunity to attack and almost disappearing from Riveh's sight, standing as he was at the bottom of the staircase. Still, there was no missing the glow from the creature's eyes in the dim, dim light. It stared at Trant with an almost palpable force.

Trant's Will save: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (19) + 3 = 22

The Dame staggered for a moment, just long enough for him to worry she might fall down the stairs. But in the next second she shook her head forcefully, a few blonde locks coming loose, and appeared as clear as ever.

Whatever power the cat had exercised, its orange partner seemed willing to give it a go as well. "Ey, missy, heads-up!" bellowed Stig.

Another Trant Will save: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (14) + 3 = 17

It was no more effectual the second time around. Trant muttered something Riveh couldn't quite catch only to shake off the spell like a dog shook off water.

What an uneventful round. Stig stands up and draws his bow, despite being within charging distance of the orange cat. Trant moves up and attempts an attack at grey, and both cats try some spell on Trant, both of which fail. Riveh's up again! Situation is almost identical to last round.

Riveh's confused bemusement was starting to shift to outright annoyance. Had he just been out willed by a cat? Sure, not just any cat but still. It was intolerable. Worse, the entire group was failing to defeat them even on a physical level.

By cats!

This was getting out of hand. They wouldn't talk, they wouldn't run away. Fine then. The ifrit shrugged off his lingering distasteful to pummel a bunch of household pets. They wanted to play rough? Rough it would be.

The young man slid his morningstar into his hands and charged at the orange cat. He sped across the slightly dusty well-kept wooden floors, boots digging into the old carpets with abandon. He spared a moment to hope Stig wouldn't pot him with an arrow and then he was on the cat.

'Give it up!" He roared, sounding like a madman, and then swung his weapon downward.

Charge, Attack: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (9) + 5 + 2 = 16
Damage, Axe to Grind: 1d8 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 2 + 1 = 5

How much was it going to cost him to repair these floorboards, anyway? The morningstar missed, its spikes embedding into the well-kept flooring with the force of Riveh's running strike. It wasn't that his swing had gone wide, exactly. No, he'd struck exactly where he'd intended, exactly where the cat had been just a second ago. Operative word being 'had'. Damnation, the critters had all the cat-like reflexes their appearances suggested.

Still within reach, it glared at him now, cautiously, eyes just as bright orange as its fur. It was bristling as felines do, back arched and every tendon practically visible in anticipation of another attack. It did not have to wait long.

Stig attack vs Tiger: 1d20 + 6 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 6 + 1 = 14

"Gonna shove 'em in a sack and drown 'em like dumb kittens, I swear..."

Another miss. Another well aimed strike that couldn't keep up with the sheer agility of their foe. Riveh wouldn't have necessarily thought a cat swifter than an arrow in flight, but with the creature immediately before him, he saw it as it happened: the bright eyes momentarily darting towards Stig, drawing his bow; the cat laying itself low like its lion cousins stalking their prey among the tall grass of the Tandak plains; the arrow sailing over it to embed itself in the wall, dangerously close to a cowering Piscum; and then, leaping back its feet as if its sinews were more spring than flesh, the thing's attention back on himself. Was it his imagination or did it look just a bit smug?

The ifrit's annoyance threatened to boil over into anger if not for the vicarious outlet that followed above.

Trant attack vs Dusty: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22
Damage: 1d10 + 8 ⇒ (9) + 8 = 17

"Wrah!"

The Dame's cry of exertion was matched by a high hiss from the haughty-looking longhair, she apparently managing to cut the damn beast. Or so he guessed; they were moving further onto the second floor and he could only just make out Trant at the top of the stairs from his new vantage point. Second time was apparently the charm. Still, while the cat had sounded pained, Riveh wondered just a bit at the fact that it seemingly hadn't died outright at a blow from the Dame's sizeable sword. The felines were clearly magical, but were they also more durable than their forms suggested?

This consideration had to be put on hold in view of something more alarming still.

Trant's Fort save: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (5) + 5 = 10

"Wuh...? What's happening? Stop! What's happening?!" the noblewoman yelled in equal fright and anger.

Riveh could see what was happening and understood her confusion just fine. Trant was... shrinking. A corona of strange spatial distortion surrounded her, almost like a skewed looking glass. It reminded him of trying on glasses not fitted for him, objects appearing further away than they truly were, but this was quite real. In just a few seconds mighty Dame Malphene Trant, tall enough to challenge most doorways, had shrunk to the size of a halfling. Even at a distance, he could read her expression. Trant looked appalled as a child denied their birthday gift.

He had precious little time to consider this. For his own foe made a move, darting away just far enough that he couldn't reach it with the morningstar. And before the ifrit could close the gap, he saw the tabby cat's burning orange eyes light up, a spatial distortion effect radiating from them like heat shimmer from flame. The skin of his hand began prickling.

Whoops, for whatever reason I thought Reduce Person was a Will save. It actually targets Fort which makes more sense. Doesn't make any difference here; Trant's earlier two saves were high enough anyway. But you, sir, owe me a DC 13 Fort save as Orange targets you.

To summarize: two attacks from Riveh and Stig vs Orange, both miss. Trant makes a sizable dent on Gray who remains standing and retaliates with Reduce Person after the requisite 5-ft step. And Orange does the exact same with you, backing away and targeting Riveh. You're up.

Riveh's annoyance now blossomed into anger. So far they had achieved nothing except to look like fools, smash up the flooring and now, apparently, be subject to magical spells. Trant the halfling! For once Riveh found himself agreeing with Stig's more blood instincts. Drown them indeed.

But these weren't a pack of hapless kittens, ready for the sack. In fact, Riveh felt a wave of hostile magic pour toward him, a shimmering aura likely to shrink him down to gnome size...or worse!

Fort Save: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15

But his stubborn spirit won through, or perhaps the otherworldly specter of the Outer Dark already suffused him. Either way the attack dissipated without harm.

Time to attack...again Eventually either he or Stig would make contact.... right? The ifirt felt a slight twinge between his shoulder blades at the idea of another arrow flying toward them but no time for that now.

Attack Orange!: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (18) + 5 = 23
Damage: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8

Riveh could feel it, the assailing magic, prickling on his skin and trying to take hold. But whether through brawn or stubbornness, his form did not yield, almost very literally powering through the arcane shimmer as the ifrit barreled forward, breaking through the cat-creature's magic like it was a pane of glass, morningstar first. He could feel it shatter about him like so many shards, familiar as the was with the arcane. Just as surely, his wary opponent's little skull would shatter underneath the weapon he brought down upon it once again.

The young man's spirits, battered as his body at the less than successful battle thus far, lifted. A direct hit. He had struck the damnable puss straight on its arched back. For any conventional cat, his blow should have sent the thing on to whatever afterlife the gods had set aside for the simple companions. Of course, Riveh had seen enough of these feline facsimiles to know better; he did not expect to end this in one blow.

Even so, he was disappointed.

His spirits doused once again, the ifrit felt it in the impact: the resistance. He had struck the cat square on its back and should have seen it flatten like an accordion, flexible as the animals were. Instead it only barely gave. Never mind comparisons to animals, it felt more like he'd hit a furry brick. No, the creature was clearly not best pleased, not with the way it hissed at him, but the blow hadn't done nearly the damage it reasonably should. What were these things?

Damage reduction 5!

Stig attack vs Tiger: 1d20 + 6 + 1 ⇒ (15) + 6 + 1 = 22
Damage: 1d8 + 2 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 2 + 1 = 10

The thoughts were momentarily interrupted by an arrow whistling by his ankle. Stig was apparently something of a sharpshooter when pressed (that, or he simple didn't give a damn about Riveh's safety), for he had little trouble addressing a target in melee. The arrow caught the orange-striped cat in the side. The next second it clattered to the ground, not a drop of blood on it. It hadn't penetrated. Another yelp, another furious hissing as of tomcats fighting in heat. It clearly felt some measure of pain at the strike, but, once again, hadn't been remotely as affected as any mortal creature should.

"What the piss is this?!"

A fair query. One interrupted by yet more cries, two of them, one in frustration and another in pain. The jury was out on whether the noblewoman or feline sounded more animalistic.

"Turn me back, you mangy... grimalkin!" roared Trant, only stumbling on the invective.

Mini Trant attack vs Dusty: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20
Damage: 1d8 + 7 ⇒ (8) + 7 = 15

The battle up on the second floor had now progressed beyond his sight; Riveh only caught a dim gleam of moonlight on the noblewoman's steel as she swung it. Still, it certainly didn't sound like it was going overly well for the dusty-looking cat. Its cries rang with significantly more distress than his and Stig's own feline on the ground floor.

"Wait! Hold on! Come back here!"

So much so that the surly beast had apparently beaten a retreat. The ifrit heard the young woman's voice grow just a bit fainter as she pursued it somewhere above. Did this leave just the one opponent? Riveh looked to the sunset-orange tabby cat. It too seemed to consider him for a moment, the equally bright eyes looking just a bit thoughtful.

Then it disappeared.

"Boy, move!" the knight reprimanded behind him, as if Riveh had moved to block his line of sight to their prey. "Where did it go? Where the hell did it go?"

But no; without the least fanfare, no sound, not even a puff of smoke as seen with hedge magicians, the cat had simple disappeared right before his eyes. For a moment nothing stirred, the old house still again but for the heavy breathing of everyone still standing.

Including his seneschal Onara Piscum who emerged from her hiding nook by the front door, usually so heavy eyes splayed open in shock. "My Lord, wh..." She did not get far.

"Riveh!" demanded Trant, emerging at the top of the stairs.

It wasn't often she used his given name, the ifrit noted. Trant seemed to reach for it only when distressed, as if it represented a last resort only to be used in the direst of needs. And she did in fact look more than a little distressed, and not just due to the disarray of her usual finery and carefully set hair. "Riveh, the cat ran off and I can't find it! This isn't permanent, is it? It will wear off, right?"

She indicated her own diminutive form with some awkwardness. Goodness, but she appeared small at the top of the staircase, the same steps she had taken two at a time in going up now no doubt a challenge for her. Further reducing her stature was a crack in the usually so imposing veneer. It was in her voice as well, a fear sneaking its way into the otherwise strong voice like a badly strung violin in a string orchestra, there at the edge of your perception. He knew she wasn't magically inclined. Was she afraid that she was shrunken forever?

Combat over! Unless you have some way of countering what may or may not be invisibility within a single round that I haven't accounted for.

Riveh looked up at the miniature Trant, who suddenly looked like a very sullen and scared looking child. For a moment the ifrit is tempted to tell the noblewoman she will be shopping in the halfling quarter for the rest of his life but some innate kindness wins out.

Barely.

"It should," Riveh, "At least I think so. My spells usually wear of quickly, at any rate."

And with that, with a bit of his irritation at Trant returning, he turns to Onara Piscum.

"Well, it isn't ghosts." Riveh says unnecessarily, voice oddly loud in the suddenly quiet, seemingly dusty house. "You knew Lady Betony. Did she have a special affectation for cats? Any of those look...familiar?"

Riveh had a sudden vision of an old, ailing Aliss Betony arranging an army of magical vengeful cats to defend her estate long after she went to meet the Gray Lady. People seemed to indicate his supposed relative had been batty, perhaps this was her idea of a watch-dog.

A little crease he hadn't even noticed disappeared between Trant's eyes at his assurance that the magic was temporary.

"Alright. Okay," she nodded. She really had been nervous, he surmised.

Should he have let her stew a bit? Let her think being shrunk to the size of the halflings she had never shown anything but scorn for was permanent? Was she even worth sparing his thoughts on, kind or unkind? It was this line of thought that saw Riveh turn to his seneschal instead; he had a query for the woman that would surely prove more productive.

"You knew Lady Betony. Did she have a special affectation for cats? Any of those look...familiar?"

"... Dusty, Tiger and Sable."

It took the ifrit a moment to process just what she meant by these monikers. When he had asked the elf-blooded woman if any of this seemed familiar, he hadn't anticipated her knowing the cats by their names. Piscum took another few steps into the now thrashed foyer, feet navigating the toppled furniture now ranging from dented to shattered. His earlier impression of her held true: while clearly not accustomed to out-and-out combat, she remained composed, willfully so, almost as if this was a matter of professional pride. Even so, he could tell that something had shaken her, and he wondered whether it had less to do with the violence than whatever revelation she'd had at recognizing the felines.

"Yes, Sir, in the last years of her life, Lady Betony adopted three cats. They were a great comfort to her; not many visited the estate." Right. On account of the old bird being batty and all that.

"I didn't think much of it at the time. To tell the truth, I was somewhat relieved. Speaking to one's pets seemed just a bit healthier than speaking to imaginary companions. But now..." Piscum looked more than a little disconcerted. "Sir, I searched for them after the Lady's death, hoping to find them new homes. I thought it the least I could do. But it was as if they'd vanished. And... Sir, I swear they haven't aged a day."

Well then. Supernatural, telekinetic immortal cats. The universe had a way of throwing its most ludicrous challenges at Riveh Geminus. What would be next? Perhaps best he not ask himself that. The powers that be could interpret it as a challenge. Better to ask what in the world he was supposed to do about this latest hurdle.

Nary had the word 'hurdle' left his mind before Trant tripped over a very literal one.

"Ouh!"

The Dame had been very carefully navigating the stairs, the steps of which were now as cumbersome to her diminutive form as any shorn out of cliffsides by stone giants. Cautious footing had seen her reach the last step only for the aforementioned magic doing exactly as Riveh had predicted. It dissipated midstride just she reached the ground floor. Leg suddenly elongating along with the rest of her, Trant lost her balance and stumbled to the floor like... well, not at all like the famously nimble felines.

The sudden fall had taken him by surprise. But what followed shocked, astounded, nay, shook him to his core: Stig walked over to help her stand.

Or so it appeared for a moment before he wrenched one of her arms up.

"Ah!" The young woman cried more so in alarm than pain. "What do you think you're doing? Unhand me, you oaf!"

"Sit still."

It wasn't immediately clear what the knight was up to, but Riveh soon realized that he had yanked the Dame's sword arm back to inspect just that: her sword. Where it wasn't spattered with blood, the lengthy blade reflected what little moonlight the open doorway afforded. Stig's hawkish nose, broken and reset more often than any puzzle piece, nearly dragged along the surface of the thing, so closely did he review it. Without warning, he let go of the arm, sending Trant falling to the floor again.

She was up again in seconds, fuming and ready to repay the thug in kind, but he had already walked off to his own weapon of choice, picking up the arrow that had failed to penetrate the tabby cat and looking it over as well.

"Girl," he grunted. "When you cut away at that fleabag upstairs, did it feel off somehow?"

"You have some nerve...!"

"Answer the f*ckin' question!"

"Yes, damn you! It felt like... I don't know, like its hide was weirdly tough, almost like the blade was dull or something."

Riveh cast another glance at the ornate weapon. It was anything but.

"And you," Stig went on, turning to Piscum with an increasingly ornery expression, as if he really didn't want the woman to confirm his suspicion. "You said the house maintains itself, yeah?"

"Right," she merely nodded, seemingly recognizing a thought process at work and letting it form to completion.

Stig's Know (nature): 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (10) + 7 = 17

But Stig had already reached his conclusion. It did not leave him elated.

"F*ck."

The monosyllable sounded weary as a mother of triplets, returning from work at the mill only to know that her labors had yet to truly begin. Riveh waited for something approaching an explanation only for the supposed knight to nod towards the Dame's sword again. "Go on, piece it together. It's right there on the girl's substitute cock for all to see."

The 'girl' in question only grew more incensed at the comment. As for Riveh, he wasn't sure what he was supposed to glean from the impressive sword that he hadn't already seen. Except... Trant had drawn blood where the two of them had only bruised, likely on account of her prodigious strength. The stuff had yet to fully congeal, still gliding down the steel. He hadn't noticed earlier - there was no real reason he should; red blood was red blood. Except it was a curious shade of red, oddly bright, almost pink.

"O' course the blade didn't bite," Stig rumbled. "It ain't made out of..."

"Cold iron."

It was Piscum that had interrupted, she seemingly figuring it out as he spoke.

"Look at that, the bastard has some brains." If she took any offense at the appellation, she didn't show it. "Rainbow pissin', sparkle s+#~tin' f*cks. Some sort of f*ckin' house spirits. I hate dealin' with twinkles. It always gets weird. Congrats, Lord Betony. You have a fey infestation on your hands."

Even wounded, angry and confused Riveh can't help but feel a glint of pride. What had his first guess been, as they were stepping foot in this house?

'Some overly helpful tribe of fey, perhaps?'

Still, it was little comfort. As helpful as they may be, they nearly fought Riveh and his...comrades to a draw. So the real question still remained, what exactly were they up against.

"We" Riveh corrected absently, thinking. Lady Betony had these cats, but what did that prove? Fey were famously fond of illusions and suck trickery. These could merely be house spirits taking on the appearance of the long dead cats? Or fey inhabited the bodies of said cats?

Or, had Lady Betony acquired some actual fey cats from the start? That seemed unlikely, Onara Piscum probably would have noticed magically enhanced fey cats and it was doubtful a slightly mad Aliss Betony could have kept them under control.

"I think," Riveh said out loud, stirring from his thought, "These are interlopers, arriving after my relative passed away. I doubt she kept a trio of powerful magical fey in her home. Or at least, did so unnoticed. Would you agree, um, seneschal?" Riveh says, still very unsure of this supposed title.

"So, as Stig here says, infestation may be correct. Yet, I am stills truck by how they are keeping the house up, not ruining it. So maybe they do have some attachment to it...or just some innate fey compulsion to repair?"

And yet all of this did very little to actually fix the problem.

"We," the knight repeated in a grumble as rough and venomous as the scaliest of serpents. "Can't let the help forget that his only purpose in bein' here is solvin' your problems, huh?"

Someone was apparently still not best pleased with their allotted role in Martella Lotheed's grand scheme for Taldor. Well, he would have to take it up with her because for now Riveh's focus was on taking Meratt, even if he hadn't anticipated such a hurdle in simply taking his legal residence for the time being. House spirits masquerading as house cats. What was a home-owner to do?

Asking his more well established seneschal seemed as good a first step as any.

"I..." the older woman began, hesitating as if still forming her thoughts as she spoke them, "... don't rightly know what to think, Sir. Throughout her entire life, Lady Aliss was thought unsound of mind. Harmless, but not to be relied on. If those... creatures are in fact her original, true cats, then... Gods above, then I can't help but wonder about every other unseen companion of hers over the years."

The implication being what? That Aliss Betony had been communing with fey, nature spirits and what-have-you intelligences her whole life while everyone assumed her a crackpot? If true, the significances were alarming, but Piscum appeared more guilty than anything. Her features, curious mixture of elven immortality and all too human failings as they were, seemed to grow more mortal still, sinking with what he assumed was remorse. Riveh didn't know what the working relationship, if any, between his supposed relative and Piscum had been like, but surely the idea that the Lady might have been entirely lucid throughout rather upended the woman's perception of it.

She wasn't the only one here with thoughts on the situation, though.

"Whatever they are, they aren't immortal." Trant walked forward with a slight limp, her statement mirroring her gait: determined if unsure of herself. "Right? They bleed, they can be killed? I will admit to complete ignorance of fey and their fairy tales, but why not treat this as any other infestation and exterminate them? Granted, this encounter hardly went swimmingly, but they've lost the element of surprise, and if we could get our hands on some of that iron weaponry you mentioned..."

"Ain't that simple," Stig retorted, arms crossed. "Stuff's hard to come by. Expensive."

"Expensive?" The Dame looked at him as if he had just tried to scratch his nose with a dagger. "We're aristocrats, you ninny."

Before anyone could decry this as yet another display of fantastic naivety from a sheltered rich kid, she continued. "No, shush. I'm saying that as aristocrats we can utilize the aristocracy. This Count Lotheed - Stachys may be Betony land, but it still falls within his purview of the greater county of Meratt. Petition him for aid and surely he is bound to oblige."

This was an admittedly not-uncompelling angle. As pervasive as stories of infighting, conspiracy and sabotage within the noble ranks were (look no further than the current state of the nation), the Taldan aristocracy hadn't survived all these thousands of years without a good deal of nepotism. The blue-bloods helped their own. Would the local lords do the same for Riveh? Would they take pity on the long lost Betony scion? Could this in fact be an opportunity to worm his way to their trust from a position of vulnerability? Would they be more likely to band together in a time of national disarray, or peck at this new interloper at the first sign of weakness?

There were a great many ways such an approach could go, the ifrit realized, but before he could consider the politics of it further, Stig had some more practical objections.

"Much as I'd love skinning the damn things, all them fairy tales you're clueless of also serve as cautionary tales. Every one of 'em ends with some bloody fool dead or worse 'cause they tried to fight what doesn't fight fair or outwit what doesn't know reason. Now, stories are stories and always a load o' wank as a rule, but I've been 'round the bend and seen some things. Idiots who go traipsin' through the wrong forest and don't recognize their own names anymore. Men who sell out their families 'cause some chit who lives in a f'ckin' shrub apparently has a c*nt that sweet. Point is, the twinkles are tricksy. And just as likely to make yer milk curdle as steal' your firstborn. Maybe it's just these three f*ckin' cats, maybe not. And maybe they retreated for now, but all that means is they're less likely to fight us head-on next time. More likely to use their bag o' tricks." He raised his voice. "And I say this knowing damn well you're prob'ly listenin' in as we speak, you furry little crotch-lickers!"

Right. Riveh has seen one of them disappear before his eyes. It was entirely possible - likely, even - that the felines were still among them, listening. Now that he thought on it, even if the cats really did give up on engaging with them directly, this fight didn't necessarily show the three at their most dangerous. Hiding whilst manipulating furniture - they had likely meant to simply scare the perceived intruders off. What were they capable of when actually ready for a fight? More disconcerting still was the sort of retaliation the creatures of the First World could muster if truly angered. Stig wasn't wrong; the stories were many and manifold.

"Be that as it may, nothing you said amounted to much more than nagging, old man," an undaunted Trant replied, although the ifrit wasn't quite convinced this wasn't bravado on her part. "Do you have any actual solution in mind?"

"Oh, go bray in the field with the other cows. I suspect we can boot 'em out by makin' the place inhospitable to 'em or something. You know, horseshoes over the doors, iron shavings all about, piss in their nest and such, I dunno. Sh*t, go find some crusty old bird and listen to her tell stories with the grandkids. She'll have a dozen old wives' tales on how to repel fey. Maybe one of them will even f*ckin' work."

"As if you aren't overdue retirement yourself."
'
Before these petty quips could devolve into something nastier, the 'old bird' of the group spoke up. "Sir, may I?" Piscum appeared a bit more collected, a bit more her professional self, than earlier when lost in thought about the late Lady Betony. Now it appeared she had a suggestion of her own. As soon as she began, however, it was clear that the woman doubted it'd find much support.

"Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but would it please you to... ally yourself with these creatures? As you say, they appear to harbor some fondness for the estate, and if they are in fact the same three that accepted Lady Betony, perhaps they could do the same for you. After all, you share the same blood."

Well, there was a novel idea. Somewhat hindered by the fact that he didn't have a drop of Betony blood, of course.

From too few ideas to an overabundance of options. Some good ones too, mixed in the impractical and undesirable. Riveh now only wished they could discuss them in privacy apart from Piscum. Some of the relevant circumstances hinged on his well....on his bald-faced, black tongued lies.

Still, he couldn't just order her away. That would look even stranger.

Riveh looked around the battered room, "Well, simply resuming the battle has one downside." he waves a hand at the shattered clock and broken tables, "The house itself might be damaged, which I'd like to avoid." The ifrit quirked a smile, "Although perhaps the fey themselves would repair it for us. No, I'd rather keep the place in one piece as much as possible." Wouldn't do much for his 'cover' to destroy the supposed ancestral homestead.

With that carefully chosen comment out of the way, "Let's retire outside. The dust is going to make me sneeze." And, of course, no need to plot strategy amongst their foes.

Back outside, Riveh once again reconvened the impromptu council of war.

"I would like to handle this without bothering the Count, Trant. I did just arrive after all, don't want to be a beggar on my first day if we can avoid it." Asking for favors right off the bat was probably not the best way to start toppling the Lotheeds....not that he had any real idea how to begin that particular campaign.

One battle at a time.

"Sir Stig raises an interesting thought. Perhaps more local allies might be at hand." Riveh said, turning to Piscum. "Are there any reputable people of note nearby who may be of assistance. Someone with knowledge of local fey, in case this is merely an infestation of locals rather then a protection laid down by Lady Aliss? If it is merely something from the nearby forest moving in....maybe there are ways to shunt them back out?" It was a feeble hope, but one Riveh would rather explore then trying to con-exist.

Normally Riveh wouldn't really care but these cats very well may know he is a liar and just as much a Betony as Stig was.

Following their lord and leader, the group fell in step with Riveh as he departed the estate's now frightful foyer for its sizeable front veranda. Even now, only lit by moonlight, he could imagine it a delightful refuge in the swiftly approaching summer months. An idle fantasy for a different lord perhaps; one not burdened with his own responsibilities.

Chief of which was figuring out the next step of his great cat exodus. The ifrit refocused to consider the suggestions of his entourage. Piscum's idea of allying with the damn things he didn't even bother responding to, something she undoubtedly took notice of, but was also apparently too dutiful to insist upon. The woman could take a hint. Of course, he didn't mean to be rude. It was just a bit hard to explain his reasoning behind rejecting this approach without also revealing the giant sham that was his very presence here. People had been hanged for lesser schemes.

As for the Dame's proposition? Hmm, no.

"I would like to handle this without bothering the Count, Trant. I did just arrive after all, don't want to be a beggar on my first day if we can avoid it."

"Quoth the homeless lord," she sniped lowly, crossing her arms and glowering at him with a face sour as bile.

If the history books were to be believed, Taldor had fought entire wars with more civility than that shown him by his own comrades. No matter. There were more important concerns at hand. Such as Stig's suggestion. It was the most immediately appealing one, something you couldn't normally say in regards to the knavish knight. Compelling the fey to leave presumed no fighting or property damage. Assuming, of course, that there was some way to do so. An option certainly worth exploring.

Sadly, Onara Piscum put a damning damper on this prospect.

"My lord," she began at his query. Oh dear, the elf-blooded woman looked almost outright apologetic. Was it that bad? "Stachys is... not what it once was. The community has suffered in the absence of leadership, and its population is greatly dwindled. In fact, there are matters we need to review at the earliest, things you must know, but for now, no. While I could share some 'old wives' tales' as your aide put it..." - a pointed look at Stig followed - "... I cannot imagine anyone in the village would be much help in this endeavor."

In fireplace stories, swampy marshlands and witches wise in the cryptic and obscure went hand in hand, but apparently that was too much to ask for in Riveh's dump of a fiefdom. How disappointing. What's more, the seneschal apparently had more bad news to share at a more convenient date. What was in store for him? Accounting books with more red than the Exaltation Massacre?

"So," Stig sighed in leaning over a carefully carved veranda railing. "We have no plan, nor even a bleedin' clue on how to proceed. Do I have that right? How 'bout we tackle sumtin' more immediate, then? Are we pissin' off back to your open sewer of a village for the night, or takin' the chance to rummage round the place? 'Cause if it's the latter, we..."

He was interrupted by two lights approaching in the dusk, one bobbing and orange - clearly a torch - the other light blue and perfectly level despite its higher elevation - not so clearly the eye lens of Factor-12. Silas and the machine spirit had returned from stowing away the carriage, the former presumably freeing the latter from the luggage in doing so.

"Stables over yonder, milord," the older man told Riveh in reaching them, pointing towards a just barely visible outbuilding with his free hand. "In a fine enough state."

Nary had the simple hand delivered this petty detail - the first thing even resembling welcome news in far too long, the ifrit noted with some gloom - than the mechanized outsider careened his way, nearly colliding with his head.

"Prompt: Status report, immediately," it demanded, its vocabulator crackling and popping with agitation. So forceful was this brusque order that it gave Riveh pause. He realized that the inevitable probably felt a mite peeved at not being consulted at every opportunity (not to mention being treated as luggage for much of their journey), but still; Factor-12 had yet to display genuine anger towards him.

It was only when the bronze sphere went on that he recognized the stern conduct for the concern it was.

"Assessment: You have been in contact with Chaos, Master. What has transpired here?"

Clicks and whirs were heard beneath its metal surface as the great lens that was its eye scanned the ifrit from head to toe. Even so, he didn't miss that special inflection it managed to give that one word: Cha-os, with a capital C.

"What's the orb on about, boy?" Stig grumbled, not deigning to actually ask the machine spirit itself.

Right, Riveh remembered this. As an avatar of order, Factor-12 had revealed some limited ability to detect the metaphysical force of chaos back when he'd first scouted the scene for Viscountess Vitellia's mad dinner party. But hold on - did that extend to...?

"Explanation: I detect the quintessence of some agent of Chaos lingering about the Master."

"What about the rest of us?" the knight queried, suddenly more interested.

"Assessment: It sits about the height-deviating and decayed one too, but you are not my priority and thus not my concern."

"Yeah, f*ck you too. Shut up and answer this: can you track this sh*t?"

"Field assessment: The quintessence is faint and fading quickly. My receptors trace their origins to within the domicile. Estimated dissipation within two of your ludicrous 'minute' units."

Stig looked to Riveh. Apparently they had an opportunity at hand, a brief window in which they could track the faerie felines. Another option had presented itself.

So no helpful 'witch women' about then? Of course, that would be too easy even if it always worked in the stories. Kill some monster or produce some magical plant and the old hag-like crone would grant you a boon. Like cleansing your ancestral home of fey. It seemed to fit so well.

Why couldn't life be like the tales?

Part of Riveh noted Piscum's mention of other troubles. Having glanced at the town he could only guess. Dragon attack? Restless undead? Plague and famine? or worse?

Unpaid taxes?

Still, one battle at a time. House first, then the town.

Factor-12's arrival however did open up a new avenue. Perhaps with the officious archon's help they could track these slippery creatures? Perhaps find a source of their power or at least gathering place? The machine's (was Factor-12 a machine, actually?) lens gleamed like a blue star in the murk, bobbing slightly as the being hovered in front of them.

"Then let's go. Factor-12, follow this quintessence. As a side note, he encountered some, er, hostile beings inside. Stay on your guard and I give you permission to defend yourself if we are attacked. But try not to damage the house too much?" Riveh shouldered his morning star and nodded, hoping he looked resolute and determined and not desperately grabbing at straws.

So how did this work, exactly? Was Factor-12 tracking the cats by the spiritual echo left behind their auras, in effect their souls, like smoke from a candle? Weren't such remnants normally so weak as to be imperceptible? Or did the metaphorical fires of fey burn so much brighter than that of mortals due to their otherworldly nature?

Riveh's knowledge of metaphysics was spotty, but one couldn't help but wonder in following the machine spirit back inside the house. Whatever it was like, being able to see flecks of morality as surely as dust motes in sunlight, the bronze sphere seemed perfectly confident in following the trail. The supposedly rapidly dissipating trail, he reminded himself. They moved swiftly, aided in their search by Silas's lantern and the faint light emitted by the outsider's one great eye. Riveh's own eyes circumvented any darkness, of course, but the light provided some extra range, not to mention color. Also helping was the fact that one of them actually knew the house.

"This leads to the kitchen, Sir," Piscum narrated as he followed his 'familiar' from the thrashed foyer to what was indeed a kitchen. The space was fairly large and well appointed for its age, likely designed with social occasions in mind. It appeared especially expansive now, completely empty and cleared of all cutlery, utensils, pots & pans that should dominate such a place. The sizeable hearth in particular just looked sad. Some dusty boxes in the corner probably contained most of the appliances.

"Orb, are we close?" Stig asked, not bothering lowering his voice. With a group this size, stealth was probably out of the question.

"Assessment: The quintessence is more distinct here. The agents of Chaos passed here recently. Appeasement: but Master should not worry." The tinny voice adopted a mollifying tone in a lurch as natural as a tortoise shifting from crawl to sprint. "With me at your side, no harm shall befall you. I guarantee it."

The light behind its lens grew just a bit brighter and a few electric sparks erupted from the joint of its alloyed limbs as it raised the appendage towards the ifrit. In the next moment he was surrounded by glowing geometric shapes, all hard angles and exact lines. Magic? These blinked out of existence as quickly as they had arrived, but left him feeling slightly more... how to put it? Grounded? A bit more certain of himself?

"Disclosure: I have extended the perfect Order of Axis to yourself, Master, warding you from the worst predations of Chaos. So do not worry your silly, little meat processor and calm your humors. The unpredictable secretions of your fight-or-flight glands are not conducive here."

Factor-12 has applied Protection from Chaos to you.

"I don't suppose," Trant interjected, annoyed, "that you could be bothered to extend any protective magic to the rest of us?"

"Statement: You are not my primary function, and as such..."

"No, of course not," she interrupted, clearly having anticipated this response.

A doorway extending from the kitchen led them, very naturally, to the pantry. The floor and shelves of the place were completely bare, and Riveh initially wondered why Factor-12 had led them here. Then his sight fell on a humble wooden door set in the wall here.

"That leads to the cellar," Piscum offered as the knight reached for its handle. He didn't get far: it was locked. "Orb," he asked over his shoulder. "Did they head through here?"

"Confirmation: Yes," Factor-12 replied. The machine spirit did not look towards the cellar door, however. Instead its glowing lens was staring stock-straight at one of the empty shelves. "Clarification: All but one of them, that is."

All heads turned to the floating sphere.

"You mean...?"

The elf-blooded woman proved herself a quick thinker. Reaching for the door to the kitchen, the one they had just passed through, she slammed it shut behind them. They were now in an enclosed space. The creature could not escape, invisibility be damned.

"Yes," the machine spirit's flat voice continued, just a bit eerie in describing what the rest of them could not see. "I surmise that one of the agents is located on the second-to-last shelf immediately before me."

Riveh thought he heard the slightest of scrapes, as if of tiny pawed feet against wood.

It was here, right in front of them. A fey house spirit, one quite willing to use fairly considerable force to...what, defend its home? A (small) part of Riveh felt guilt about the whole procedure. The fey had been living here for awhile, obviously in peace. Indeed, they were even keeping up the home!

Yet, they were fey creatures, unpredictable and unwary. Whatever Piscum might say, the ifrit doubted they would make good roommates. No, the fey had to go.

Magic would be useful but it would not do to waste it now. Maybe once it became visible.

"Unless anyone has a better idea," Riveh says, voice light, "Then I suggest I try hit it? Considering it is still there, I doubt it understands Common. If it reveals itself after the attack, as I hope, I have some spells that may assist. " Voice still casual, "This is your last chance, fey cat. If you want to talk, now's the time."

If not, as I expect

Morning Star: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (15) + 5 = 20
Damage: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 8

Ultimatum delivered to an invisible foe, Riveh raised his hefty weapon over his head. Whatever he brought it down on he hoped to break; the shelf, surely, but hopefully the damnable cat's back.

What stayed his hand for a moment was an answer.

"Maow?"

The animal call - questioning, as if asking whether he meant the spiked implement for it - wasn't quite what he'd hoped for, but it sure was... something? Maybe?

If you elect to stay the course...

Miss chance vs invisibility; low hits: 1d100 ⇒ 95

... then bang goes the shelf.

Scholars of the immaterial would argue that describing what ensued as 'all hell breaking loose' would be entirely too strong an expression for what amounted to a scuffle in a pantry, but it certainly was a turbulent scene when, following his cue, Riveh's companions joined him in all attacking the same space of empty shelf he had struck.

An arrow whisked by the ifrit's arm while Trant and the inevitable were quick to follow, two blades - one long, one short - trailed his own morning star.

Miss chance vs invisibility; low hits (Factor-12): 1d100 ⇒ 83
No.

Miss chance vs invisibility; low hits (Malphene): 1d100 ⇒ 20
Hit?
Melee attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (2) + 6 = 8
No...

Miss chance vs invisibility; low hits (Stig): 1d100 ⇒ 29
Hit?
Ranged attack: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (6) + 6 = 12
No...

Scholars of law would similarly agree that describing the fallout of this onslaught as a 'miscarriage of justice' would be entirely too dramatic. Still, in the absence of any other visible foe, the splintered remains of the thoroughly demolished shelf resembled nothing so much as the tragic collateral of war, the innocent bystander struck down by forces beyond its control. It was difficult to imagine what it had done to deserve such a fate.

"Did we get i-" Trant tried.

"Negation: No," Factor-12 interrupted.

No, they had all missed the elusive faerie cat. As evidenced by the next moment when it did not stand idle in the face of this blitz. Piscum gave a cry of alarm when the door to the kitchen - the same she had closed - flung itself open, seemingly of its own volition.

Initiative, Cat: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (16) + 7 = 23

Initiative, Factor-12: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (2) + 3 = 5
Initiative, Malphene: 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (19) + 0 = 19
Initiative, Riveh: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22
Initiative, Stig: 1d20 + 2 + 2 ⇒ (7) + 2 + 2 = 11

Riveh thought he felt something brush past his leg, soft as a shadow, in the same moment the machine spirit hooted, "Field assessment: The agent is escaping." Rotating in the air, its glowing lens swiftly followed what appeared to be nothing at all right up to the door - the now open door.

Boy, them rolls. Not sure if you want to play this out.

Before reading, choose high or low

Disappointment. Failure. Frustration. All of these unpleasant feelings well up in the ifrit as he watches the cat not only dodge every attack but open the door. Were they that outclassed? By a house spirit?

Apparently so?

Still, Riveh refused to give up without trying at least one last try. Virtually throwing himself at the suddenly open doorway, he reached out wide, like a child making a snow angel. Reaching, grasping...for anything.
Even as he did so, divine power crackled on his finger tips, inky black sparks. A touch of outer space right here, in this crowded, dusty cupboard.

Casting Touch of Blindness

50% Percent miss chance: 1d100 ⇒ 46
If that hits, Fort Save 15 to resist being blinded