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Alyse nods briefly and taps her finger to the side of her nose. “Oh, wait,” she says before he leaves for the bar. Reaching into her beltpouch she pulls out a few of the coins that Nye had given her. “This’s what the jink’s for I guess,” she says, pressing them into Tollard’s hand before turning and hurrying after Four Finger.”
"Hey Four-Finger, want to come have a drink with us?" Alyse asks. "Sure we're buying," Alyse answers quickly. "Let's go - somewhere nice." She waits to ensure that Four Fingers is going to come with them, then hurries him back out of this slum.
"Hey Four-Finger, want to come have a drink with us?" Alyse asks.
Alyse continues looking out for danger and escape routes, feeling quite nervous in this place.
The volunteer seems to be confident that they know the intel. They are also insanely greedy for the four small golden coins Tollard jingles in his palm Alyse's fingers dance on the hilt of her sheathed sword, watching for any signs of the sods getting grabby with the jink.
Alyse doesn't trust these sods, but she has no idea whether this one may actually know something.
Alyse is happy to let Tollard do the talking for now, a bit out of her depth talking in the dark to these wretched sods.
Alyse gives Tollard a silent look of thanks, and stifles a grin at his accent while she waits for a response.
Alyse peers with distaste at the Doxy's Delight. "I don't much want to go into a dive like that," she confides to Tollard. "Let's take a look-see around the squats." Alyse warily leads the way towards the cookfire.
Alyse peers with distaste at the Doxy's Delight. "I don't much want to go into a dive like that," she confides to Tollard. "Let's take a look-see around the squats."
Once they are out of Penska's hearing, Alyse whispers to Tollard, "What do you think? Should we go and try to find this Four Fingers ourselves, or just pass the chant on to Nye?""I say he's worth checking out," Tollard whispers back. "I think that's what an investigator is supposed to do." Alyse nods at Tollard's comment. "Let's head to the Doxy's Delight then."
Once they are out of Penska's hearing, Alyse whispers to Tollard, "What do you think? Should we go and try to find this Four Fingers ourselves, or just pass the chant on to Nye?"
Tollard looks to Penska. "You ever had a problem with hardheads in this establishment before?" “Yeah, you don’t need Hardheads in the Hive – that’s not balance,” agrees Alyse. “Well, hopefully the chant you’ve given us might help stop Rykos from getting scragged … if we can figure out how to use it. Say, how would we know Four Fingers if we saw him? Apart from having four fingers I suppose?”
"Four-finger eh? What's the chant on that bubber? Any of you cutters know where we can find him?"
Alyssa nods in agreement to Penska, puts the book back on the shelf, then sits and listens to Tollard question the two locals, along with their responses. "So the Hardheads came directly this way?" She clarifies once the tale was told. "Did you see anyone rattle their bone boxes with 'em before that?"
Alye picks 'Outlands for the Cager' form the shelf and starts leafing through it, idly curious while she awaits the jarkman's return.
She'll head over to peruse the titles and subjects of the book.
"Quite a tunnel network here," comments Alyse. "Lots of escape routes."
Alyse will just kind of poke around and look down the tunnels, but not making an active search or anything.
Alyse looks about with interest – but a little peery, not having expected the jarkman to be so willing to help.
“Good to know you Penska, I’m Shade,” answers Alyse. “Do you know a cutter named Nye? He’s Swift’s man I guess … anyway, he’s trying to help Rykos the githyanki, and we’re helping him if you follow. We know the Hardheads busted up a meeting here the other peak and their trying to scrag Rykos. We want to palavar with anyone who might have seen it all go down, before during or after. Know anyone we can talk to?”
“Hi,” says Alyse. “Nice place – I love bookshops. ‘Specially ones that aren’t all neat and overly ordered. Do you focus on any particular type of texts? Anyway, we’re looking for a blood name of Penska – are you he?”
"Good! Now, let's be on our way before we attract more unwanted attention, or that berk comes back with his droogs." Alyse begins walking again.
“Yeah, you’re a right trig blood you are,” Alyse mutters as Gurron stalks off. Then she turns to Tollard, grinning. “Did you see that? That berk was scared of us!” Suddenly her expression changes to one of concern. “Oh. I hope this won’t make things bad for you?”
“Is that so?” asks Alyse, her hand now firmly on the hilt of her still sheathed sword. “Maybe that’s how it will go down … or maybe Tollard here will use his magic to hold you still, unable to move, while I cut my initials into your flesh with this sword. What do you think of that, berk?”
“What’s this berk’s deal?” Alyse asks Tollard, not trying to lower her voice. “Is he addle-coved? There’s two of us and one of him, he can’t tell you what to do. Let’s just continue.”
Alyse barely stifles a giggle.
Has Myriana lost her partner? It's almost a month since we've seen a post from Zadkiel. If that turns out to be the case, should we try to find a way to hook the catgirl up with Tollard and Alyse?
“Who’s this berk?” Alyse murmurs down to Tollard. “How do you want to handle him?” The youth reminds her – by action and even to some extent appearance – of Pate. She well remembers her run-in with Pate yester-peak and how she successfully stood up to him, but she doesn’t want to make life tough for Tollard should a similar approach fail here – or succeed for that matter.
“We’ll stay peery,” confirms Alyse. “C’mon Tollard, let’s hike.”
Alyse laughs. “Sounds right. Anyway, where are we stopping first?” “Right.” Alyse looks at Tollard. “I’ve not spent much time around the Hive, but it sounds like you know it – you up for it me droog?” Then, more generally to Tollard, Nye and Swift, she says, “Common chant on the Hive is that it’s all Xaositects, Dusties and assorted balmies; anything else we should know? Oh, and …” she starts checking through her notes, “did Rykos give us the name of his jarkman?”
Alyse laughs. “Sounds right. Anyway, where are we stopping first?”
“Is that so? He seemed like a right grumpy cutter to me – not that I’d say so to his face. How does a drinking session with a Baatezu go?”
“Well that shouldn’t be hard,” Alyse says darkly, thinking of her encounter with Hard Theros earlier that peak. “The Hardheads are always trying to pin stuff on some poor sod. But I agree with your palaver about balance … and no, best not start a rave in the Lady’s Library – that Ice Devil doorman might have a thing to say about it.”
Alyse glances at Tollard and pulls a face (behind Nye's back). "Sure. The Hive sounds ... lovely. So ... Does what Rykos told us help? I mean ... it sounds sort of like a confession. As far as intent goes anyway."
Alyse applies ink to pen with practised ease, then sits poised, pen above paper to take notes.
Alyse nods back somewhat warily at the son of Gith and glances about for a likely looking chair or patch of floor to sit. Just before she does she recalls her purpose here and asks Nye, “Do you have something you want me to write stuff down on?”
As Nye banters with the bouncer, Alyse glances at Tollard and raises an eyebrow. Wife? she mouths silently. She’d have assumed that a Xaositect would be far too chaotic to enter into an institution such as marriage … but then Nye wasn’t much like other Chaosmen she’d come across before. Upon being introduced to Swift, Alyse frowns slightly, suddenly annoyed that Calita had called her by her name in front of Nye – she preferred to go by ‘Shade’ with people she didn’t know – or trust – that well. She liked Nye, and appreciated what he’d done for Calita, but she didn’t know that she trusted him, or his Anarchist friends for that matter. The frown changes to a slight sardonic smile as she thinks, Well at least he didn’t call me Moon this time. “’Lo Swift. Call me Shade,” she says, shaking the other girl’s hand. Her eyes flick somewhat warily towards the Githyanki as she speaks.
We'll be here when you feel right cutter.
Alyse shrugged. “Not particularly. Oh, some of them are right balmy sure enough, but the same could be said of just about any Faction, couldn’t it?” She pauses and considers her earlier encounter with Theros. Anything that balanced out the extreme sort of law and order practised by the Hardheads was likely a good thing. “They’re okay by me for the most,” she adds.
“Oh, hello Tollard; where’s Calita?” Alyse asks, noticing the halfling. Then to Nye, “Alright, no problem. When do you expect your client?”
Alyse looks up, but sees little above through Sigil’s usual overhead clouds of smog. “Yes, hello,” she says. “So … what do you want me to do?”
Alyse breathes a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was to be taken in by the Hardheads, especially Theros. She idly wondered what Shadow had done to have him after her so hard. Though it probably wouldn’t take much. The nerve of him to accuse her of being an unlicensed jinkskirt! She continued on towards the Dusty Wig.
Alyse groans inwardly even as a blush flushes her pale cheeks. She looks around, hoping to see a friendly face in the crowd. “No,” she says firmly. “There is no chance that might be me. I don’t do – either of those things. I’m no jinkskirt and no Knight of the Post - ask anyone. And ‘a pale female’ – really? That could describe a hundred – a thousand – women around here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for work. At my job in the Court District.”
After talking to Shadow, Alyse dresses, grabs something to eat and heads over to the Dusty Wig.
Alyse dreamt of shadowy fey, a crown that burnt with black flames, strange yellow sailed ships, and an ancient, forbidding city atop a high, cold plateau. She wakes with a start, but is comforted by the sight of Shadow lighting the fire – it makes her feel like a young girl again. She snuggles in her blanket, enjoying the contrast between the cold stone of the floor and the soft blanket against her bare skin, wrinkling her nose at the smell from the burning razorvine logs. “Some,” she answers Shadow, raising her eyebrows. “I can’t say for certain we found any dark that your Primes don’t already know or would pay jink for, but we’re starting to figure out some of the chant on this Crown. We did some research at the Lady’s Library last before anti-peak; according to what we discovered, the Crown of Shadows was forged in the Shadowlands by a Svartalfar by the name of Haruscrux; a Sciomancer and a magewright. The Shadow Crown was his most famed creation, made for the Bahn Sidhe King, Niall IX. The artifact was handed down from generation to generation until the Moon Beast Wars. After that, its all rumours; A company of Darakhul mercenaries were said to have taken back into their Underdark kingdom. There are also rumours that it ended up in the souks of far Leng the terrible. Still another rumour places it in the personal collection of the chief vizier to the Emir of the City of Brass.” Alyse stops quoting from the book and shrugs. “We did find another source that seemed to confirm a war between Leng and the Bahn Sidhe of the Shadow Court, but nothing solid – no specific mention of the crown. I’ve got some ideas on other avenues of investigation, but I won’t be able to get to it until later – got some work this Peak. Oh, the modron that works anti-peaks at the Lady’s Library did offer to do additional research on our behalf, but it charges 50 gold a night – not sure if your Primes are flush – or clueless – enough to fork out for that.”
“Ah, it’s never quiet in the Bazaar,” says Alyse. “Well, I’ve done enough work for this peak – I need some shut eye. Are you two kipping at St Cuthbert’s? Well, I’ll be off to Shadow’s, it’s not far – see you at the Dusty Wig.”
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