Blades in the Dark (GM Sarah)

Game Master Sarah 'queen' B.

Grabbing a bit of rope and tying it to her waist, Lolo steps forward. She'd spent time on her surveils of her former boss on rooftops, perched onto walls, and even climing the rare tree located near the docks. This couldn't be too difficult, right?

The rain and ice have maede things more difficult thatn it looked, but Jonah's experience in the War shows through and he manages to get the group up to the top without more difficulties. From youour position dangling next to the gutter, you have a good view of the street down below. Lolo can see two possible ways in - there's a window in the roof a few yeards away, getting in means somoene looking up form the street would see you, if Jonah's magic fails. Otherwise there'll be a window at the back of the house, but getting there means climibng across the rooftop which in the ice/sleet of Febuary is a challenge.

This is the Dusk - tehere are no easy choices.

It turned out harder than Lolo had anticipated, but in the end, after a couple of slips and near accidents, Lolo finds herself flat on the roof next to the gutter, her body convulsing in cold shivers as the ice and sleet seep into her clothes.

In her wanderings/stalkings, Lolo often found the more circumspect the route, the more chances for unforeseen circumstances. Casting a silent wish that Jonah's magic holds, Lolo rises unsteadily to her feet and makes for the window a few yards away, and rubbing a gloved hand across it to clear as much sleet as she can, peers down into Hutton's home.

The magci that Jonah has crafted holds - but the reason Lolo knows that is because the room inside that she is looking into is nto an empty attic. Its where Hutton's children sleep. Tow of them, currently being read a story by an older woman, probly not the mother, could be teh grandmother. The curtains are still open and anyone looking up would see Lolo, but they clearly haven't. Which is why she knows the magci is still holding.

For now.

Dpn't blame me I was all set to give you a nice empty attic but the dice said NO. very loudly

The stinging pain of lacerations on her knee hasn't improved Casia's normally acidic personality. "Son of a ..." she hisses in a frustrated whisper at the discover that the attic isn't empty.

"We need to try the other window," she says, looking back over the rooftop.

After quickly and easily making the initial climb, Jonah nods grimly at Casia's assessment of the situation. Glancing at the ice covered roof and cursing the continued rain, Jonah cautiously starts to double back and work his way around to the other window.

Teh clibm across the roof is not without its moments of stress, as you slip and slide across the roof with the winter wind doing its best to knock you dwown. But you get to the other side of the building, and look in at the frost-rimmed window at a room that is hapily free of peopel - an attic/storage room, whatever. It's a way in if you can get the frosted windeow open.

Wait. Why is this window sudenly frosted over? The other one wasn't.

Even as you watch, the frost on the panes grows, spreading and cracking with lines of energy and the termperature around you - and only around you - falls, further and further and further as the Ghost Field makes itself known to you. Out of the blakcness of the night, a figure manifests itself, swimming in the emptiness. Swimiing, or drowning? It's not clear. Its limbs thrash and its hair swirls as if underwater, the bloated, pale face and its fish-plucked eyesockets turning to stare at you as one waterlogged arm reaches out, extending and extending and extending to brush with fumbling, fish-nibbled fingers at the daggr tucked into Lolo's waistband. The dagger that Lyssa gave you.

The other arm, you notice, is cluchted to its side, trying to hold in a bleeing, lethal wound. Ruiviulets of extoplasm leach out of it, bleeding endlessly as Roric's ghost 'relives' the memory of his kiling. The clumsy fingers contingue to scrabble at the knife which killed him, as the eye sockests stare blankly, accusingly at the woman who carries the fatal dagger.

"mmmmmuuuurdeeerrrreer!"

AS if things couldn't get worse, the cards - which may or may not have drawn the ghost here in teh first place - fizzle up, wahtever mangic was shielding you now gone. Tahnfully there's noboedy around here yet, just you and Roric's ghost.

Less thanfully, to put it another way, you're alone on a rooftop in enemy territory with an angry ghost.

Lolo twists backwards, inadvertantly, not even trying to hold onto the dagger, just pure impluse to get away from... Roric? Lolo only new of the guy, but she'd heard rumors he'd been drowned or killed and tossed in a canal, and gods, everything clicks into place. She was carrying the dagger that did it.

One pistol is drawn, smoking and shaking and shimmering in the darkness, the ectoplasmic ammunition kicking within the gun as if alive. As usual, Lolo was carrying two pistols: one loaded for bear against the living, the other... well, for other problems. Like the present.

Lolo backs up, her voice low, barely a whisper, as if she come across a predatory animal in an alleyway, a tiger or something strange and exotic that had escaped from some berker noble's manse, something incongruent and feral and ready to pounce. Which, surely, Roric was, only worse.

"Hey there, Roric right? Let's uh talk, eh. Quietly?"

The gun shakes, maybe the ammo or maybe nerves, and the implication is clear. I will shoot. But of course that would be loud, and loud needed to be avoided. Hopefully the others had a better idea.

Casia stumbles back from the phantom, almost crab-walking on the icy room tiles.

"Do we have a f~$+ing sign hanging up somewhere that invites everyone to give us their haunted s#%&?" she questions through clinched teeth. Her gaze turns to Jonah. "You know what to do with ghosts, right?"

"It must be your magnetic personality, sister dearest." It's difficult to do a languid drawl when your lips and tongue and the rest of you are stiff with fear, but Finraeth does his best. He also does what he's paid to be on this team for: no matter how much he'd really, really much rather not, he inches his way forwards - towards the danger, putting an arm out in front of Lolo and slowly starting to ease her behind him.

His other arm clasps at the ghostbane charm (thank the Dead Gods that he had it repaired from their last caper!) as he bravely/foolishly tries to get Roric's attention. "Hello there. We never actually met, as such, but I know who you are - and you know your killer. You know she isn't here. Look at her!" He steps fractionally away to one side, letting the ghost take a proper look at Lolo. "Use your dead eyes and look. She's a Skov, for one thing." He waves his ghostbane charm again, hoping it will do something. "She's not the one you're looking for. We none of us are."

He doesn't expect this to do much - but at the very least it might buy some time for Jonah to do his thing.

Fin's action gets Roric's attention - the ghost stops tryuing to reach Lolo and focuses its empty eye gaze on the cutter instead. He hass the ghost's undivided attneion. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on what happens next.

You don't drive him away, but you do buy some time for the rest of the group to do some stuff

At first Jonah feared it may have been Naty stirring up the ghost field. When he realizes it isn't his inquisitive sister, he lets out a soft sigh of relief only to have that turn into a curse. Of course it had to be Roric's ghost. Blasted sins of their employer coming to haunt them. There isn't much time to think. With Lolo and Fin managing to keep the spirit occupied, Jonah quietly and carefully slips a battered spirit bottle from beneath his coat.

"You know she isn't here. Look at her!" Fin exclaims as Jonah slips the worn, cracked shape of his black spirit mask over his face. As the mask slide over his eyes the world is suddenly a negative of reality. Roric is there looming next to Lolo and Fin who are now appear to be the apparitions. Their forms fuzzy and aetherial through the eyes of the Ghost Field.

Finally he slides his Lightning Hook free from his belt. With an expert flick of the wrist he extends it out to its full length with a snap and crackle of electricity. The noise immediately alerts Roric and from that moment there isn't time to do much but act. The Whisper drives his will forward, slamming it into the ghost while lashing out with the Lightning Hook. Every ounce and fiber of his being is focused on pushing the ghost toward the only possible place where it might find safety from the lash of the hook. The Spirit Bottle.

Dive into relief! Jump into the waiting arms of comfort! Flee to safety!" His mind shouts through the aether as his manages to flick the electrical loops around Roric's neck. A crackling noose bringing pain to the ghost and the scent of brimstone and death to those on the rooftop.

But Roric is not weak. A man with hundred's of deaths weighing upon his soul wouldn't be. Still, surprise allowed the Whisper the upper hand in the battle of wills and power...he just didn't know if it would be enough.

Roric flinches away from the hook that Jonah has looped around him, but too late - distracted by Fin, the whisper has had the few moments of time he needed to prepare himself and the battle of wills is ontly going to end one way. Which is not to say that it's easy going, at all. The ghost thrahshes around like a shark caught in a shrimp net, and it takes all of Jonah's experience and will to force him into the spirit bottle. In the process there's a smell like burning ozone and a vast surge of electroplasm arcs across the lightnihng hook, the spirit bottle, Fin's raised ghostbane charm, before it earths itself in all of you.

After a few moments, there is silence. It is done. The spirit bottle seems to pulse in Jonah's hand, like some living thing. Occasional sparks of electroplasm crackle across its surface.

Tendrils of smoke curl from Jonah's ears and the eyes of his spirit mask. More escapes from his lips as he breathes a heavy sigh of relief while carefully wrapping the now icy cold spirit bottle with a thick rag before slipping into a large pocket on the inside of his coat.

"Not the easiest, but neither the worst capture, I've ever made." He says as the aetheric sparks continue to flicker along the brim of his hat and seems of his thick coat.

With quick, professional motions he pockets both lightning hook and spirit mask before stepping over to slide the window open.

"Let's hope that little ruckus with Roric didn't wake up the whole house." He says before climbing inside.

With her hands shaking and her face surrounded by a nimbus of statically-charged hair that's escaping from her hood, Casia follows Jonah into the attic room. "Why can't this ever go smoothly?" she whispers.

Once inside, she lowers her hood only to have her hair rise like a sparking crown. "Oh, for f&**'s sake," she says rolling her eyes and pulling her hood back up.

After everyone's gathered inside, she places a hand on Jonah's arm. "I appreciate what you did back there," she says. "That stuff just freaks me out."

Sparks fly from Finraeth's fingertips as he puts away his (undamaged, this time) ghostbane charm. "That could have been worse." He gives Jonah an appreciative nod. "You're a useful person to know."

Once inside the house, he takes a moment to get his bearings.

The window is locked, but Casia has no troupble opening it and getting you into the attic space. It's tiny, cramped - most of the space on this floor is taken up by the bedroom you looked into (althought there's no door connecting that room to this one). The air is thic with dust, and there's a patch of mold in the corner where the roof has leaked and let in the damp. Boxes are stacked everyehwere but it's clear this isn't a room anyone uses much - it's where things go to get forgottin about.

Fin has manged to get hold of some drawings of teh house and he knows that the main bedroom is - or should be - on the floor below, at the front. The problyem is how to get there from here. Tehre's a trapdoor in the middle of the floor, but no stairs. Opening the trapdoor slighly, you look into the hallway below. In the dark, you can see the glint of a metl folding ladder, but it's lying on its side against the wall. Even if you could reach it, it looks rusty - unfolding it would probly be quite noisy.

What do you do now?

It wasn't a climbing kit per se, but one could never discount the use of a good set of rope. It could be used to spring across an alleyway to impede pursuit, as leverage to pull something down, as a lasso, and of course, as a climbing aid. Pulling a coil from her worn leather satchel, Lolo sets to work tying knots into the rope, in order to aid everyone's descent (and later ascent). Once finished, Lolo ties the rope to a joist in the attic and stands by the trapdoor, ready to drop the rope.

"Use the knots to get down quickly. I'll raise the rope and stay here, and lower it when you come back."

Patting her trenchcoat where her pistols lay hidden, she continues. "And I can provide cover if needed."

Would it be one load for a length of rope? That would max Lolo's load out at 3 (pistols, ecto ammo, and rope).

"I'm not sure anyone ever gets used to dealing with spirits." Jonah quietly responds to Casia. "It's more a matter of learning to control, the all too natural fear, panic, and mind breaking nature of such things." He says, the sparks still snapping around the brim of his hat giving him a less than sane visage as he watches Lolo knot and secure the rope.

In spite of her slashed knee, once Lolo has finished knotting the rope and has it in place, Casia slithers down it like a deadly snake. Her eyes are watching for threats and her hands are on her daggers.

Finraeth follows behind, wincing slightly as the rope aggravates the burns on his hands; but he drops to the floor in almost perfect silence.

With the map in his head, he confidently points Casia in the direction they need to go.

Casia rolls her eyes at him, but turns about from the direction she was intending to head and moves silently down the hallway in the way he indicates.

Resolve? Have you met this girl?

Finraeth gives his sister a look of disbelief as she diverts from the task at hand for a handful of silver. Once he's sure he has her attention, he holds up one finger to indicate one guard, before pointing around the corner. Drawing his blackjack from inside his coat pocket, he moves forward as quickly and quietly as he can to (non-lethally) put the threat down.

Not so fast

CCCREEEEEEAAAAAAAK

Teh hinges on the door are rusty and noisey. During the day, with people up and about and kids runing around, it probly wouldn't be noticed. But right now? It's loud enough to wake the daed. Or at least the guard, who mumbles grogily for a moment before reaching for his dagger just as Fin reaches him - and what was hoped to be a quick, silent strike turns into a life-or[-death skirmish!

It happens incredibly quickly - from the instant where Fin reaches for his blackjack to the point where he grabs the luckless gang member, pushes him against the wall with a forearm to the throat while his other hand smacks the blackjack into the back of the head and drops him soundlessly to the floor could be measured in half-seconds.

He doesn't even realise he's been stabbed until his legs give way slightly and he presses one hand to his side and feels the warmth of his life-blood spilling out.

S+@*. Getting blood out of linen is such hard work.

Wincing as the adrenaline wears off and the pain breaks through, he gestures to Casia, indicating that the way is clear for her to move forward.

Jonah winces at the sudden cry of the rusty door. He throws a worried glance a Lolo and strains to hear any signs of others in the house stirring to investigate the noise.

The altercation with the room guard is quiet enough that Casia doesn't even realize that something went wrong until she's returning to her brother's side with a full belt pouch. That's when she notices the unconscious man and the blood soaking through Finraeth's tunic.

"Gods, Fin!" she hisses, her face paling. "What happened?" She rips the lower edge of her own shirt off and attempts to bandage the wound.

Lolo sits, crouched in the attic by the door, tense as a boiler at full steam. "Just a creak," she murmurs to Jonah, as she leans down putting her ear to the trapdoor. "Just a creak." she repeats, as if trying to will a smooth and quiet operation into existence.

Fin shakes his head, fending off Casia's attempts at first aid with one hand. "The guard woke up before I expected him to, but I put him to sleep again." He points at the door, now unguarded. "In the name of the dead gods, go - get it done and we can get out of here!"

Casia looks up at her brother for a moment, worry aging her face. After a moment she nods and moves to carefully open the door and get this job done.

The bedroom door opens sliently, and from the doorway Casia can see the slumped form of the gang boss, mouth slack open as he snores loudly. He doesn's so much as stir when she gets closer, close enough to stick him with the kniefe before she instead pushes it as quietly as she can into the side of the bed. He'll see it first thing when he wakes. Which should be a while from now, howpefully. Either way, it's time to get out of here.

As she makes her way back out of the room, Casia can't help but let her eyes wander over the chamber, seeking out anything of easily portable value. Once through the door, she clasps her brother's hand and quickly leads them back towards the rope to the attic.

Footsteps approach, and Lolo nods to Jonah to lift the attic trapdoor just so slightly, so she can peer down into the dim - nay, dark - hallway. Seeing two people stop below, Lolo slips the rope through the cracked hatch and at tumbles with a soft thump down into the hall.

She doesn't say anything. Either things were OK and they'd climb up and they'd all be gone, or they weren't and they'd go to plan B. Whatever that was.

Fin gives Lolo a wry smile as she makes a sudden appearance. "'Tis done, and done well, although I had to put someone back to sleep after he woke up." It's clear even in the dark that he has one hand pressed to a wound in his side. "You'd best both go up the rope first, you might have to pull me up. But let us away from here, post-haste."

Sweat trickles down Jonah's back as he sits in the attic waiting for Fin and Casia to deliver the package. Straining his senses for any sign of trouble or other danger his heart skips several beats until Fin's head pops back up into the crawlspace.

As soon as Casia is up and the trapdoor closed Jonah follows Fin's advice and scurries back up the rope and into the cold, wet weather.

Even with Fin's injury, it's not difficult to get him back up the rope and into the small attic. The windoew is still open and it's easy to get back onto the roof, the spring rain drving into your face as the wind sweeps across the ever-dark city of Dusckvol. The magic cards that got you up here undetected are sparked out from the business with the ghost binding, so you will need to find a way down - and away from here. Soon.

What will you do?

Finraeth's face is pale as he scans the rooftops, although the bleeding seems to have slowed/stopped. Possibly because his very expensive linen shirt is acting as a bandage; he winces at the thought of what it will cost to replace. He looks around some more.

"So... can anyone remember the way home from here?"

Casia scans the nearby rooftops with bloodshot eyes before pointing at a nearby building. "That way," she says with confidence. From the small bag on her back, under her cloak, she pulls climbing gear.

"We should move across the rooftops for a couple of buildings before dropping down to the street."

light climbing gear

Nodding at Casia's assessment, Jonah follows the Akorosi as quietly as he can trying not to slip to his death on the slick shingles.

Finraeth follows as nimbly as he can, although the blood loss and pain from his injury are not conducive to strenuous activity and he loses his grip on the rope...

"Dammit, Fin!" Casia hisses as she reaches out and grabs him by the wrist. Only then does she notice how pale his skin is.

"Lolo! Get over here and help Fin," she says as she uncoils more rope and anchors it to a cast iron vent pipe protruding through the roof. She stumbles across the roof playing it out like a guideline before clumsily hopping across the two-foot gap to the nearby building.

"Oi," Lolo murmurs, lifting the unsteady fighter to his feet. "What happened to you, anyways?"

The roof is slick, and Lolo can swear the weather is worse than when they went into the attic. Propping Finraeth up, Lolo puts one foot tentatively in front of another, and then again, and again. Too slow, too dangerous...

Your little team *cannot* catch a break tonight it seems. Despite all teh rain, the clouds part for a moment, at jsut the wrong time and the dead light of the broken moon can be seen. It's dim, less glimmer even than a candle, but in the constant darkness of the Dusk it's enough to outline you against the sky as you maek your way along the rooftop. And down below, someone is watching - you hear a cry, and then running footstoeps in the street below. You need to get out of here, away from Grinder turf, before they close you down.

What do you do?

Despite their predicament Finraeth gives a slight, unsteady smile as Lolo helps him up; the closest they've been since, well, that night. "We have to stop meeting like this," he tells the redhead. "People will talk."

Despite the lighthearted quip, he's grateful for her support. As they shuffle along the rooftop, he relies on her to look where they're both going so that he can look around. He hopes that the dim light of the moon-that-was will be enough, combined with the maps that he studied, to let him pinpoint a landmark to navigate the swiftest way home.

A muted groan escapes Jonah's mouth as he levers himself back up to his feet with the help of the closest chimney pipe. Testing his ribs and limbs for any breaks, there's a brief sense of relief when he finds nothing beyond sore, probably bruised muscles. Relief quickly turns to a curse as he spots Fin and Lolo on the opposite roof.

Hearing the approaching pursuit, he struggles for a way to keep from having to cross the entire city via these ice coated rooftops. He stifles a cough as the wind swirls blowing the chimney smoke from a fire deep within the building into his face. The idea pops into his head. It isn't much, but it might be enough.

He quickly slips out of his jacket and removes his shirt ignoring the curious gaze from Casia. Shrugging the jacket back over his shivering shoulders, he rips the shirt in half at uses the cloth to plug the chimney. He carefully moves to the next smoking stack and does the same with the other half of the shirt.

Waiting a few minutes until he can hear a few muted shouts and see smoke suddenly start emerging from windows he then nods to Casia and mouths the words Fire! while moving toward a shadow filled corner of the building.